Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Electrical Industry (National Approvals Scheme)

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make a statement concerning the progress made by the British Standards Institution on a national approvals scheme being made in conjunction with the electrical industry.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir David Eccles): Discussions within the industry are still continuing. I hope that the British Standards Institution will soon be able to report some progress.

Miss Burton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of us share that hope? Does he appreciate, as I think he does, that these discussions have gone on since October, 1957? Is it his hope that they will be determined within a month or so?

Sir D. Eccles: I hope so. I inquired and there seem to be genuinely difficult technical problems. All I can hope is that they are resolved within a short time.

Export Credits

Mr. Cronin: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to provide credit facilities extending over a greater period than five years for foreign firms and institutions purchasing capital goods from the United Kingdom, having regard to the increasing competitive disadvantage that British exporters of capital goods are suffering in this respect.

Sir D. Eccles: British exporters of capital goods are not generally under any disadvantage in this respect. If the hon. Member has any particular case in mind, I should be glad if he would let me have the details.

Mr Cronin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the countries of many of our principal competitors there are specialised institutions for giving longterm credit to such organisations, thus giving them a competitive advantage?

Sir D. Eccles: So there is in this country— Section 3 of the Export Guarantees Act, 1957

Jute Manufacturing Industry

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the President of the Board of Trade the respective percentage increases in labour productivity in the United Kingdom jute manufacturing industry during 1958, and in the United Kingdom manufacturing industry generally.

Sir D. Eccles: I have noted the recent statement made by the retiring Chairman of the British Jute Trades Federal Council that since the war output per head for the jute industry has risen more than in the United Kingdom manufacturing industry as a whole. While I cannot confirm this statement such information as I have supports it.

Mr Thomson: In view of the way that the jute industry under successive Governments has responded to the national need for increased productivity, will not the President of the Board of Trade give it that reassurance about its future which it now needs?

Sir D. Eccles: At present, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the jute industry is doing quite well.

Sir J. Duncan: Is not this statement of the Chairman, supported by my right hon. Friend, a great tribute to the employers in the jute industry, who, to make it efficient, have invested more than £11 million worth of capital in the industry since the war?

Sir D. Eccles: I agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the President of the Board of Trade the estimated capital investment in the jute manufacturing industry in 1958.

Sir D. Eccles: Official figures of capital expenditure in the jute industry in 1958 are not yet available.

Mr. Thomson: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the Chairman of the Jute Trades Federal Council has reported that £418,000 was invested in the jute industry last year—a remarkable figure considering the uncertainty created by the right hon. Gentleman—but that that investment is now declining? Will he remove the uncertainty in the jute industry, which is enjoying a temporary period of prosperity, and give that assurance for its long-term future which will allow the industry to carry out its long-term plans for expansion?

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Gentleman knows that the difficulty about such an assurance is that we have to think about our relations with India.

Consumer Protection (Committee)

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to be able to announce the membership of the Committee appointed to consider the whole question of consumer protection.

Sir D. Eccles: As soon as possible, but it will take a little time to find the right people.

Miss Burton: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect to be able to announce the Committee's terms of reference before announcing its membership? Flow much longer does he think it will take the legal experts to settle the legal points arising out of that?

Sir D. Eccles: Only a short time, think. A number of Government Departments are involved.

Trade with Canada

Mr. F. M. Bennett: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps the Government have taken in the last seven years to stimulate trade between the United Kingdom and Canada; and what success their efforts have achieved.

Sir D. Eccles: In the last seven years our exports to Canada have increased by nearly a half. The Government have given every support to private initiative in this market and to the Dollar Exports Council and will continue to do so.

Mr Bennett: While the results so fair as they are known are encouraging in that they show an increase in the overall figures and a decrease in the export gap between us, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees that it is true that much more remains to be done by the Canadians before a rather fairer balance is achieved?

Sir D. Eccles: We welcome any help the Canadian Government can give. As a matter of fact, last year's balance was better than we have had before, and I hope that the improvement will continue.

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade the amount of trade between Scotland and Canada during each of the last ten years, indicating the products dealt in, and the steps he is taking to develop and increase this trade.

Sir D. Eccles: The list of products, starting of course, with whisky, which Scotland sells to Canada, is too long for a Parliamentary Answer. I have no figures for Scottish exports as distinct from United Kingdom exports. Scottish exporters derive advantage from the export services of the Government.

Mr Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman be so kind as to send me a list, if it is too long to state now? Does he realise that I have asked this Question because representative Canadians, many of them Scots or of Scots descent, have publicly expressed their anxiety to increase trade with Scotland and because I want to know what reciprocal action he is taking to encourage them?

Sir D. Eccles: It is very good news that Canadian Scots want to buy Scottish goods. I will do my best to send the hon. and learned Gentleman a list.

Machine Tool Industry

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that highly-skilled machine tool workers in Coventry are being laid off and in consequence are having to look for less skilled work; and what steps he is taking to avoid the breaking up of such skilled teams.

Sir D. Eccles: Out of 4,000 industrial operatives employed in the machine tool industry in Coventry, about 200 have been discharged since the beginning of the year. Twenty-two of these remained unemployed on 13th March, of whom 17


were semi-skilled and skilled. The restoration of investment allowances announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will be of particular benefit to the machine tool industry.

Miss Burton: It is not a question of employment. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that a month ago I attended a conference of the shop stewards of the Coventry Gauge Tool Company and that all the shop stewards are very worried about skilled workers having to take less skilled work, and about the dispersal of that skill?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, the position needs to be watched, but we hope that the industry will now pick up.

Sir J. Duncan: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the Coventry Gauge Tool Company has factories in Angus as well as in Coventry, and that the same thing is happening in Angus as is apparently happening in Coventry?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir.

Lisbon Trade Fair

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the nature and kind of Scottish products which will be on exhibition at the forthcoming Lisbon Trade Exhibition.

Sir D. Eccles: I am informed that among the Scottish products on display will be ships, marine engines, heating equipment, food machinery, agricultural machinery, pumps, contractors' plant, scientific instruments, textiles and clothing, sports goods, foodstuffs, furniture, glassware and linoleum.

Mr Hector Hughes: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that comprehensive reply. Has he been invited to play any part in the compilation of the catalogue with a view to ensuring that justice is done to United Kingdom products at this exhibition?

Sir D. Eccles: The F.B.I. is looking after that and I have every reason to think that it can do so very efficiently.

Scotland (Trade with Africa)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the extensive expont trade between Scotland and the East, West and

Centre of Africa, particularly in fish; and what steps he is taking to protect and increase that trade.

Sir D. Eccles: As I have often explained to the hon. and learned Member, the services of our Trade Commissioners are available at all times to Scottish exporters. Exports of fish and fish preparations to this area were about 10 per cent. larger in 1958 than in 1957.

Mr. Hughes: Surprising as it may seem, there is already an extensive trade in fish products to these African countries, and my anxiety is to increase it. What is the right hon. Gentleman doing to increase it?

Sir D. Eccles: I agree that it is a good export, and when I was in South Africa the other day I saw some of the efforts that are being made.

Bankruptcy Law Amendment Committee

Mr. du Cann: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has now completed his consideration of the Report of the Bankruptcy Law Amendment Committee; and if he will make a statement.

Sir D. Eccles: I cannot add anything to the reply given on the 23rd March to a Question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett). This Report is still under consideration and there is little prospect of early legislation.

Mr. du Cann: In view of the fact that there appears to be a good deal of support for the Committee's recommendations and that it is the first comprehensive review of this important subject for nearly fifty years, can the President of the Board of Trade say when he thinks he may be in a position to make a statement?

Sir D. Eccles: I wish I could, but I am afraid I cannot.

Resale Price Maintenance

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the opposition of shopkeepers to the operation of Section 25 of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, which provides for the individual enforcement


by legal proceedings of resale price maintenance conditions; and what proposals he has for repealing the section.

Sir D. Eccles: Some shopkeepers wish for the repeal of Section 25, but most of the representations received from retailers are in favour of the enforcement of resale prices. The answer to the second part of the Question is " None, Sir."

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the effect of this Section is—exactly as was feared—to keep up prices, cut out competition and push up the cost of living? Will he now consider removing this restriction which his Government imposed and set the shopkeepers and the housewives free from these restrictions? Secondly, is he aware that there are indications that this restriction imposed by his Government is being used by price rings for collectively keeping up the price of their products?

Sir D. Eccles: I cannot accept the suggestions made by the hon. and learned Gentleman. If there are price rings, they will have to be registered.

Staffordshire Potteries Water Board (Cast Iron Pipes)

Mr. Swingler: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that, despite the termination of the registered restrictive trading agreement relating to cast iron pipes, 31st December, 1958, the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board continues to receive identical tenders for the supply of such pipes; and if he will therefore reconsider his previous decision and instruct the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements to give this matter priority before the Restrictive Practices Court.

Sir D. Eccles: If it is believed that the agreement is still effective evidence should be sent to the Registrar, since it is his responsibility, and not that of the Board of Trade to deal with allegations that the agreement is in fact continuing or has been renewed.

Mr Swingler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board followed his advice and, after the so-called termination of the agreement, asked for new tenders and once again received identical tenders from four firms? Does not this show that the

termination of the agreement is merely a " phoney " one; and will he, therefore, give the instructions asked for in the Question that urgent priority should be given in order to stop this keeping up of prices against local authorities?

Sir D. Eccles: The Board has informed me of these identical tenders. I cannot say whether that price agreement is still in existence or not, but I have passed the information to the Registrar, who presumably will now deal with it.

Mrs. Slater: Does not the right hon. Gentleman remember that when a similar Question was asked before he gave us information and advice along the lines which my hon. Friend has mentioned. Surely he does not believe that it is a mere coincidence that, on the second occasion, identical tenders are received; and, in the interests of a board like this, is it not wise that he should at least give some direction to the Registrar?

Sir D. Eccles: I am sorry, but the Act says that it is the Registrar's duty to pursue allegations that an agreement is still in force. We have drawn his attention to that, and no doubt this Question will do that, too.

Mr. Jay: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman at least say how the Registrar will be able to pursue it?

Sir D. Eccles: If he thinks that in fact there is evidence, he can apply to the High Court to have the persons brought before it.

Oil (Imports from U.S.S.R.)

Mr. Osborne: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many licences he has already granted for the importation of oil from Russia; for what quantity; how many other applications have been made for licences; and what are his reasons for not granting them for a five-year period instead of annually.

Sir D. Eccles: Over the last five years no application has been refused outright; one has been modified; 25 have been granted for 526,000 tons of oil not all of which has been imported. In addition, 140.000 tons have come in under 41 open individual licences on issue to long-established oil importers. Oil is now in surplus supply and it is, therefore, necessary to deal with imports on an annual basis.

Mr. Osborne: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that Russian oil is being offered at half the price of the Anglo-American counterpart and that many more firms would take it if they could be sure that they would have a five-years' supply, because the cost of converting from coal burning to oil burning is very considerable? Since the Russians have indicated that they would take part of the price in barter and therefore help our production in this country, would my right hon. Friend consider giving longer-term licences to those who wish to import?

Sir D. Eccles: I am not aware of the price differential which my hon. Friend has mentioned. This is a very difficult subject because, as a matter of fact, we have as much oil as and more than we want at the moment. I do not think that it would be wise to tie up our imports by giving a five-years' licence. That would be something quite exceptional.

Trade Mission, Moscow

Mr. Osborne: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will arrange for a number of practical businessmen who are directly interested in East-West trade to visit Moscow as part of the trade mission he proposes to send; and if he will make a statement on the arrangements so far made.

Sir D. Eccles: I will bear my hon. Friend's suggestion in mind, but I am not yet in a position to make any statement about the composition of the mission.

Mr. Osborne: I am much obliged for my right hon. Friend's promise. We hope that when the mission goes it will create a favourable atmosphere between the two parties. If the businessmen are on the spot when the atmovhere is good, trade may result, and that is what we want.

Sir D. Eccles: I shall bear that point in mind.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering the composition of the mission, will he give special attention to the necessity for Scottish businessmen being on it, because of the great need for extra trade in order to decrease Scottish unemployment?

Sir D. Eccles: I shall keep all those matters in mind.

Common Embargo List

Mr. Reader Harris: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that, under the trade agreement signed in Paris on 22nd December, 1958, between France and Poland, there is provision for the export to Poland of silicon to the value of 45,000,000 francs; and whether, in view of the Common Embargo List, published by his Department on 15th August last, which prohibits the export of silicon of a purity of 99.9 per cent. or more, he will give an assurance that the exports of British manufacturers are placed under no greater restrictions than any other member country of the Consultative Committee.

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. I understand that this agreement does not provide for French exports to Poland of any goods subject to the international embargo.

Mr. Harris: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people are under the impression that other European countries are not adhering to the embargo list as strictly as we are, and that France is one of the more persistent offenders at present? Is my right hon. Friend's Department taking any action in the matter?

Sir D. Eccles: I have no such information. As far as I know, the French have always kept their bargain as well as we have.

Mr. Reader Harris: asked the President of the Board of Trade why it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to maintain the common embargo prohibition on the export to the Communist countries of oscilloscopes, cathode ray, and specialised parts thereof containing or designed for the use of one or more cathode ray tubes having three or more electron guns or three or more cathode ray tubes.

Sir D. Eccles: Because these instruments have applications for military research.

Mr. Harris: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that was not quite what I asked? How is it that one of these machines can go with only one or two cathode ray tubes, but that if the machine has three it goes on to the embargo list? If the machine has only one or two it is free. and any number of these can be


sent and can be put together on the other side. Is not that absurd?

Sir D. Eccles: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to my attention. It will enable us to tighten up the controls.

United Kingdom Contracts, United States of America

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any further statement to make regarding efforts to set aside engineering and power plant contracts obtained by British firms in the United States of America.

Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir, but Her Majesty's Government have made clear to the United States Government their concern about this matter.

Mr Blenkinsop: Can the President of the Board of Trade at least confirm that there is no danger of the Tennessee Valley Authority contract with Messrs. Parsons being set aside?

Sir D. Eccles: There is no danger, as far as I know.

Mr Jay: Can the Minister at least assure us that until we get some satisfaction in this matter he will not make more trade concessions to the United States?

Sir D. Eccles: One cannot link dollar liberalisation with this subject.

France (Quotas Agreement)

Mr. Bellenger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a further statement in respect of the inter-Governmental negotiations between Great Britain and France concerning trade relations.

Sir D. Eccles: As announced on 2nd April, agreement in principle has been reached on quotas with France for 1959.

Mr Bellenger: Are the negotiations purely bilateral negotiations between this country and France, or do they arise out of the Common Market Agreement and the disagreement about the Free Trade Area? In the latter case, will these negotiations be continued with the non-Common Market Powers and, if so, will the Minister deal with the matter himself, or will his right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General do so?

Sir D. Eccles: The disagreement arises from the fact that on coming into force the Common Market discriminated against our goods. It has also discriminated against the goods of other members of O.E.E.C. who are not in the Common Market. We have kept them informed of what we have done, and they are now negotiating with the French. I hope that they will get the same treatment as we have got.

Mr. Bellenger: Is the House to take it that the negotiations were only with France and not with the Common Market Six, and that hopes of further negotiations with a view to widening the Free Trade Area, or coming to a Free Trade Area agreement of some sort, are now extinct?

Sir D. Eccles: The right hon. Gentleman will know that France had very stringent quotas, whereas her partners did not. Therefore, the negotiations had to be with France, because it was only in the French market—and, to a slight extent, in the Italian market—that that discrimination was going to take place.

Mr. Woodburn: Since it was the French, in the main, who frustrated the coming into being of the European Free Trade Area, does this development indicate in any way a softening of their attitude and a more agreeable approach to a Free Trade Area, or some such organisation?

Sir D. Eccles: It provides a transitional arrangement for this year, during which we can resume wider negotiations.

Machinery (Imports)

Mr. Reader Harris: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state, in respect of imports Class D Division 15 (Machinery other than electric) and Class D Division 16 (Electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances), respectively, the total value of imports into Great Britain in the year 1938 and in the year 1958 together, in respect of each of the two years, with a comparative analysis showing the principal countries from which such imports were acquired.

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, publish it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the figures:

UNITED KINGDOM IMPORTS



£m.



1938†
1958†


Class D, Division 15




Machinery other than electric of which:
21·2
136·8


Western Germany‡
5·6
38·8


United States of America
9·4
38·7


Switzerland
0·9
10·1


France
0·7
7·6


Sweden
0·8
7·0


Netherlands
0·5
6·2


Class D, Division 16




Electrical machinery, appara tus and appliances of which:
3·5
29·6


United States of America
1·1
8·0


Western Germany‡
0·8
5·8


Netherlands
0·4
4·1


Switzerland
0·2
1·5


France
0·1
1·3


Sweden
N.S.S.
1·1

Notes:N.S.S.=Not separately specified.

* Figures for Great Britain are not available.

† Owing to changes in statistical classification between 1938 and 1958 the figures are not precisely comparable.

‡ Germany 1938.

Industrial Building

Mr. Robert Cooke: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many jobs were provided by new industrial buildings and extensions completed in the first quarter of 1959; and how many more jobs he expects to see provided in the near future.

Sir D. Eccles: No figures are yet available for industrial building completed in the first quarter of 1959; industrial building approved during the twelve months to 31st March, 1959, is expected to provide work for 71,770 people.

Mr Cooke: I thank my right hon. Friend for his most encouraging reply. Will he bear in mind the value of regular publication of such figures, showing as they do the success of the Government in this field?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes.

Mr Awbery: Is the Minister aware that the Bristol Commercial Vehicles organisation has vacated its premises in Bristol, and that those premises are now standing idle? Will the Minister see that

these premises are used before building any others?

Sir D. Eccles: I did not know that, but I am glad to have that information, and I will do what I can about it.

Mr M. Clark Hutchison: Can my right hon. Friend give the figures for Scotland separately?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, if my hon. Friend will put down a Question.

Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: asked the President of the Board of Trade the percentage which Scotland obtained of the total amount of factory building approved in Great Britain during the periods 1949 to 1951 and 1956 to 1958, respectively.

Sir D. Eccles: Scotland's share of the total area of industrial building approved in Great Britain was 6.6 per cent. between 1949 and 1951 and 7.1 per cent. between 1956 and 1958.

Mr T. Fraser: Has the Minister at hand particulars of the Scottish share of the industrial building completed in the years referred to in the Question? It is the number of completed buildings which is really important.

Sir D. Eccles: The one follows the other, at a little distance of time.

Mr Fraser: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the six years of the Labour Government Scotland received over 12 per cent. of the industrial buildings completed, and that it was because of the large amount of factory building approved, and awaiting construction in 1949, that the new approvals were discontinued for the time being? This shows that the amount of factory building completed is important.

Motor Cars (Export to U.S.A.)

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the President of the Board of Trade the percentage increase in the value of United Kingdom exports of motor cars to the United States of America between 1948 and 1958.

Sir D. Eccles: Car exports are about eleven times greater in 1958 compared with 1948.

Trade with Poland

Miss Pike: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what proportionate extent United Kingdom trade with Poland has risen since 1951.

Sir D. Eccles: Imports have increased by 26 per cent. and total exports—including re-exports—by 56 per cent.

Miss Pike: I welcome that increase in trade, but does not the Minister agree that there could be a further considerable increase in the sale of capital goods to that market? Poland is anxious to get increasing quantities not only of capital goods but of consumer goods. Does my right hon. Friend also agree that, although we must try to send as much as possible to Poland, we must be careful not to finance any increased trade by taking an undue quantity of bacon from Poland, thereby upsetting the position of our other suppliers?

Sir D. Eccles: My hon. Friend cannot have it both ways.

Trade with India

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps Her Majesty's Government have taken in the last seven years to increase trade between the United Kingdom and India and what success these measures have achieved.

Sir D. Eccles: We have kept our market open to Indian goods and given India substantial financial aid. As a result our exports to India increased from £114 million in 1952 to £160 million last year.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: Can my right hon. Friend say whether our trade with India follows the traditional pattern of the exchange of raw materials and consumer goods, or whether it tends more, today, to the supply of capital goods to India?

Sir D. Eccles: Indian import licensing is fairly strict on consumer goods. Capital goods form the largest proportion of our trade with India.

Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958

Mr. Thornton: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will include the areas covered by the Farnworth and

Walkden Employment Exchanges in the list of areas where Government assistance under the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958, is available.

Sir D. Eccles: I am glad to say that the rate of unemployment in Farnworth and Walkden is not such as to warrant our adding it to the D.A.T.A.C. list.

Mr. Thornton: Does the President of the Board of Trade not agree that the proposed reorganisation scheme for the cotton industry plus the recent decision of the Restrictive Trade Practices Court are almost certain to result in an accelerated rate of closing of mills which are now partially operating? Will not this, as forecast by the Restrictive Trade Practices Court, result in a large increase in the wholly unemployed in these areas? Will the Minister consider the problem again, with a view to anticipating the inevitable changes, and scheduling the whole cotton belt?

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Member is quite right in saying that certain changes have taken place in the cotton industry. We shall have to watch them. What happens to any labour displaced depends on the alternative employment in the district, and we have that fact very much in mind.

Mr. Houghton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has now considered the representations sent to him asking for Todmorden to be added to the list of areas to which the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act applies; and with what result.

Sir D. Eccles: The rate of unemployment in Todmorden does not warrant its inclusion among the places eligible for financial assistance under the Act. But I will continue to keep the situation under review.

Mr. Houghton: Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly inform the House what level of unemployment is necessary, and for how long it must last, before an area of this kind qualifies for assistance under the Act? Is he aware that the proportion of unemployment in Todmorden recently was over 8 per cent. and is now over 5 per cent.? How much higher must it go?

Hon. Members: It is getting less.

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Member may have got the figures wrong, because in March the number of unemployed in Todmorden averaged 1.7 per cent. and, including temporary stopped, the figure was 4.5 per cent. It is necessary to have evidence over a rather longer period as to the number of wholly unemployed if we are not to spread much too wide the aid which can be given under the Act.

Mr Rhodes: Would not the President of the Board of Trade agree that the present criteria for scheduling under the Act make it difficult to discriminate between one area and another? Would it not be far better to schedule the whole of industrial Lancashire as a Development Area now?

Sir M. Stoddart-Scott: Todmorden is in Yorkshire.

Sir D. Eccles: It is difficult, especially when we have a big city like Manchester, to know what to do with places which are within travelling distance of it. If we were to schedule the whole of a great county like Lancashire it would be awfully difficult to pick out the had places.

Industrial Development Certificates, Langstone

Mr. Stevens: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many industrial development certificates have been issued since 30th September, 1958, in respect of the area represented by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone; and how many persons it is expected will find employment as a result.

Sir D. Eccles: Since 30th September, 1958, five industrial development certificates have been issued for the Langstone area, to give employment to 1,133 additional persons.

Mr Stevens: Does my right hon. Friend realise that, by any standard, that must be regarded as satisfactory progress in a reasonably short space of time? Will he say what proportion of the 1,133 will be male labour?

Sir D. Eccles: I am afraid I could not do so, without notice

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Proposed Graving Dock, Greenock

Dr. Dickson Mabon: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is now in a position to announce a favourable decision on the application by the Inch-green Investigating Company Limited for financial assistance in the construction of the proposed graving dock at Greenock.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Derick Heathcoat Amory): I am afraid not

Mr Mabon: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, since he made the announcement last year, unemployment in my constituency and on Clydeside has remained very formidable and is standing, no matter what the Minister of Labour does, at a very substantial 8 per cent.? Would not he agree that this is most unfortunate?

Mr Amory: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. I would like to see a satisfactory outcome of the matter to which the Question refers. As the hon. Gentleman knows, these applications are made in confidence to the Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee and so, beyond my Answer, I cannot say anything more to the hon. Gentleman today.

Mr Woodburn: Is not this a matter of concern not only to my hon. Friend's constituency but to the whole of the Clyde Valley? Can the Chancellor say whether the delay is due to the committee or to the people who are promoting the scheme, so that the public may know whom we can ginger-up a bit?

Mr Amory: I appreciate the point that this proposal is of wide interest. Limited, as I am, by what I have just said to the hon. Gentleman, I cannot say more than that I think the difficulty has arisen from the nature of the proposal in the application. I do not think there is any blame to be attached to either side.

Commonwealth and Foreign Countries (Loans and Grants)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much of the £1,970 million provided by the United Kingdom in loans and Government grants to Commonwealth and other countries was provided in the years 1945–51 and 1951–59, respectively.

Mr Amory: The United Kingdom provided from Government funds loans and grants for Commonwealth countries of £150 million in the financial years 1945–51 and £520 million in the financial years 1951–59. £1,070 million and £230 million respectively were provided for non-Commonwealth countries in these periods.

Purchase Tax

Mr. Swingler: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the cost in loss of revenue in a full year of exempting pottery from Purchase Tax.

Mr Amory: About £3¼ million.

Mr Swingler: Does the Chancellor recall that this tax was reimposed on pottery six months after the General Election of 1955 and seven months after the electioneering Budget of that year, and that it has had a totally harmful effect? If he were concerned to help hard-hit industries, would not this obviously be a tax which should be removed altogether?

Mr Amory: I understand that home sales of pottery last year were at the highest level for some years. I would also point out that in my proposals I have reduced the rate on pottery.

Mr Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend confirm that pottery and carpets have both benefited from the Chancellor's generous proposals in his Budget?

Mr Amory: Yes, I assent with enthusiasm.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an approximate estimate for any convenient period as to what proportion of the Purchase Tax reliefs of his 1958 Budget were passed on to the consumer.

Mr Amory: The range of taxable goods and the number of traders handling them are both so great that no such estimate is possible. It must be left to competition to secure that the benefits from tax reductions, like other reductions in cost, reach the consumer in one way or another, as I have no doubt they do.

Mr Cronin: is the right hon. Gentleman aware that last year there was not a fall in prices following the reduction in Purchase Tax? Would he make it clear that reliefs arc intended to reduce costs to the consumer and not to increase profits to the producer?

Mr. Amory: I would not accept the hon. Gentleman's statement that, following the Purchase Tax reductions made in the Budget last year, reductions were not made in retail prices. My information is, in general, entirely to the contrary.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the actual yield from Purchase Tax in the year 1957–58 and 1958–59, collected from those groups taxed at 5 per cent., and the estimated yield for the same groups for the year 1959–60.

Mr. Amory: In 1957–58, about £51 million; last year, about E531 million; and for the current year the estimate is £55 million.

Mr. Beswick: Will the Chancellor explain why over a period when the economy is said to have improved and when he has been able to make reductions all round, this regressive tax on essentials has steadily increased?

Mr. Amory: The only reason for the increase was that there was an increase last year in this 5 per cent. category when I reduced the rate on certain items from, I think, 10 per cent. to 5 per cent.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is not this a very funny way of running a Purchase Tax system —that when the Chancellor reduces the total Purchase Tax the parts dealing with essentials. which carry the lowest rates, are expected to yield more next year than last year? Secondly, will the Chancellor say why he has not taken out of this group those items put in by the Lord Privy Seal in the post-election Budget of 1955?

Mr. Amory: I should have thought, on the contrary, that the figures I have quoted show that this particular part of the tax is soundly based. The other part of the rise is due to the general rise in the standard of living and purchasing power of the people of this country.

Public Service Vehicles

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the additional annual cost to the Exchequer of amendment of Section 3 of the Vehicle Excise Act, 1949, so as to provide that the maximum duty chargeable on public service vehicles was the same as private cars.


namely £12 10s., instead of the amended charges proposed in his Budget statement.

Mr Amory: About £1 million more than my Budget proposal. If a refund were given on current licences, the total extra cost in 1959–60 would be about £1¾ million.

Mr Davies: As the concession made cost £3½ million, would not this cost only an additional £1 million? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it would be worth while to simplify the law in this respect, because there would be considerable economy in administrative costs if this system were introduced?

Mr Amory: I do not think so. Perhaps there will be an opportunity of discussing this question later on the Finance Bill.

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the estimated annual cost of remission of duty on diesel fuel used in public service vehicles.

Mr Amory: Twenty-six million pounds, but since relief from Hydrocarbon Oil Duty could not be limited to oil used for particular purposes, such remission would put in issue the entire duty, which is expected to yield £355 million this year.

Mr Davies: Why does the Chancellor say that there could not be a discriminatory tax of this sort in view of the fact that in the Budget he has exempted certain vehicles from duty on the oil which they consume, vehicles which do not normally operate on the road but operate elsewhere, so that there is discrimination already? Further, as this remission would cost only £26 million and he has remitted £36 million of beer tax, does he not consider that to help rural transport services which are steadily deteriorating would be of greater benefit to the community?

Mr Amory: There are two difficulties. First of all, there is the question here of discrimination between diesel oil and petrol and then the question of discrimination between passenger buses and other kinds of road haulage vehicles. Again, perhaps I may say, Mr. Speaker, that it is conceivable that we shall have an opportunity of discussing this question later.

Long-term Interest Rates

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to reduce long-term interest rates, having regard to the circumstance that they have not fallen to an extent consistent with the decrease in Bank Rate.

Mr. Amory: There is no direct link between movements in Bank Rate and long-term interest rates. As I explained to the hon. Member on 2nd December last, the level and movements of longterm rates of interest, reflect fundamental conditions in the capital market.

Mr. Cronin: Would the right hon. Gentleman at least avoid this year such heavy sales of Government securities by the Government as were such a feature last year and which caused long-term interest rates to be inordinately high?

Mr. Amory: I would remind the hon. Gentleman that I said in my Budget statement that the Government's financial policy during the forthcoming year would continue to be adjusted to the needs of the situation as it develops.

Mr. Jay: Is the Chancellor aware that high interest rates are severely restricting new council house building at the present time? Is it Government policy that new council house building should expand in the present year?

Mr. Amory: Again, I think my reply would be that our policy on interest rates in general must be related to the general position of the economy.

Mr. Osborne: Is my right hon. Friend empowered to give a gentle hint to the building societies that they might consider a reduction in their rates in the near future?

Mr. Amory: I must look into the question of the general powers I have to give delicate hints in the way my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. Jay: Would the right hon. Gentleman answer my simple question? Is it the wish and the policy of the Government that council house building should expand in the present year?

Mr. Amory: Yes. Steps have been taken in the present year, and council house building is expanding.

Nationalised Industries (Profitability)

Mr. D. Howell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will appoint a committee to inquire into the comparative profitability of the nationalised electricity and gas industries, British European Airways, Cable and Wireless Limited, and the Post Office, and to make recommendations.

Mr Amory: No, Sir.

Mr Howell: Is the Chancellor aware that this Question was put to the Prime Minister because of the answer he gave on 5th March in which he said, quoting the Atomic Energy Authority:
One can summarise these things as one likes This one can never pay. The others do not pay."—[OFFicIAL. REPORT, 5th March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 622.]
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the industries mentioned in the Question are efficient and do pay? Will he inform the Prime Minister that, notwithstanding an approaching General Election, it is generally desirable to maintain standards of truth and accuracy in these matters?

Mr Amory: The main reason for giving the Answer I have given is that I am not persuaded that such an inquiry as the hon. Member proposes would be useful owing to the different nature and responsibilities of the industries, but the financial results of some of these nationalised industries are, of course, subject to review by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries.

Mr Gower: Will my right hon. Friend agree that, as a general proposition, the profitability of nationalised industry is rather less than was forecast by the editors of a booklet called " Let us Face the Future," published in 1945?

Mr Awbery: Hon. Members opposite are facing backwards.

Mr Amory: I think from memory that what my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) has said reflects the facts.

Mr Jay: Can the Chancellor say if the Bank of England is making ends meet? If so, will he tell the Prime Minister?

Mr Amory: have no quarrel with the operations of the Bank of England.

Cinemas (Entertainments Duty)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what would be the cost of extending the tax-free allowance in respect of cinema admissions from Is. 6d. to 2s. 6d., assuming the balance is divided as at present, namely, one-third to the Exchequer and two-thirds to the cinema; and
(2) the cost of extending the tax-free allowance of Is. 6d. to 3s. in respect of cinema admissions, assuming the balance is divided as at present, namely, one-third to the Exchequer and two-thirds to the cinema.

Mr. Amory: Five and a half million pounds a year for 2s. 6d. and £7¼ million a year for 3s. Od.

Mr. Rankin: Does the Chancellor realise that if he accepted the suggestion of extending the tax-free allowance to 3s., 83 per cent. of the cinema admissions in this country would be free of tax altogether, which would still leave us very much behind America, where the number amounts to 95 per cent.? Does he realise that if he does not do something about cinemas a great many will be closed down by his lack of action in the Budget, whereas they might have been able to keep open if he had given them some relief?

Mr. Amory: I should point out to the hon. Member that I think the main reason for closures of cinemas is lack of public support and not this particular duty. I should not be surprised if this matter also arose during our discussions on the Finance Bill.

Pensions (Increase) Bill

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an assurance that, in the investigations prior to the introduction of a new Pensions (Increase) Bill and a fresh Royal Warrant, the cases of retired nurses, midwives, officers and other ranks and retired colonial servants will also be added to the list already announced as covered by the investigation.

Mr. Amory: I envisaged increases of the pensions paid by Her Majesty's Government to nurses and midwives, to officers and other ranks, and to retired colonial civil servants. I am consulting the local authorities about increases on the pensions which they pay to nurses and midwives.

Dame Irene Ward: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that assurance, which will give very great pleasure, may I ask if he will bear in mind that a general percentage increase in pensions will not really meet the case in view of the fact that the older the pensioner the less the pension? When considering all these problems, will he try to see that those who are worst off get the maximum benefit?

Mr Amory: I have much sympathy with what my hon. Friend has said and I promise to take careful note of her views, as I always do.

Mrs. L. Jeger: Can the Chancellor assure us that if any of these retired nurses and midwives are receiving National Assistance there will be no reduction in their National Assistance allowances to make up for any increased pension he is able to allow them?

Mr Amory: I do not think I could give the hon. Lady that assurance. National Assistance paid will, of course, be computed according to the normal rules of the National Assistance Board.

Income Tax Returns (Disposal)

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps are taken to preserve the confidential nature of Income Tax returns when they are disposed of.

Mr Amory: Income Tax returns are normally disposed of with other Government waste paper of a confidential nature by pulping in paper mills, the pulping arrangements being subject to inspection by officials of the Stationery Office or the Post Office. The sacks containing the waste are sewn up securely and sealed before leaving the Tax Office.
In any area where satisfactory arrangements for pulping cannot be made, the returns are disposed of by burning or other means.

Mr Callaghan: I am sure everybody will be delighted to have that reassurance, but can the Chancellor tell me how I came to pick up on the docks at Cardiff last week these Income Tax returns? I agree that they are old, but they relate to pottery firms in the Midlands and give full details of their income and correspondence between inspectors about

all their affairs. Is the Chancellor aware that these returns, in company with others, are regularly shipped to the Continent for disposal, without any regulation? When a bale breaks open, as they often do, these things are left lying about on the docks for anyone to pick up and examine people's private affairs.

Mr Amory: No; I admit I am rather concerned by what the hon. Gentleman has said. All I can say is that if he will give me the most complete information he can give, I shall look into it as a serious matter if what in fact he alleges is capable of taking place.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Atmospheric Pollution, Tees-side

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what action he has taken under the Clean Air Act, 1956, and earlier legislation to reduce atmospheric pollution from industrial undertakings situated on Tees-side and, particularly, in South Bank and Grangetown.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins): The alkali inspectors are working on the difficult technical problems presented by industrial processes brought under the Alkali Act last year. The local authorities are responsible for enforcing the Clean Air Act in respect of non-scheduled processes.

Mr Palmer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that my constituents had great hopes of the clean air legislation passed earlier in this Parliament, but they are now beginning to wonder when something is to happen about it?

Mr Bevins: I am quite sure the hopes of the hon. Member's constituents will be fulfilled. The Alkali Inspectorate is following this matter carefully.

Oral Answers to Questions — QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Captain PILKINGTON: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on the progress


made since 1954 towards doubling the standard of living by 1979.

Mr Albu: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Did I hear you call Question No. 43? The hon. and gallant Member for Poole (Captain Pilkington) is in his place.

Mr Speaker: I was told that that Question had been withdrawn.

Captain Pilkington: It was done to allow the information to be accumulated.

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. HEALEY: To ask the Prime Minister if he will publish the text of his statement to members of the United States Congress during his recent visit to Washington.

Mr Healey: On a point of order. I asked this morning that Question No. 45 should be transferred to Thursday.

Mr Speaker: I did not hear about that.

Oral Answers to Questions — CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Mr. Beswick: asked the Prime Minister whether he has considered the copy of the Charter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament delivered to him on Easter Monday; and what reply he proposes to make to the correspondence since received from the chairman of the campaign.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has seen and noted a copy of the Charter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. A letter from the Chairman of the Campaign forwarding the text of a resolution passed in Trafalgar Square on Easter Monday has been acknowledged and he has been informed that its terms have been noted. In addition, my right hon. Friend received on Thursday last a letter from the Chairman asking if he would receive a deputation to discuss British policy in relation to nuclear weapons. He has replied that, while nuclear weapons, and all the problems to which they give rise are among his constant preoccupations, he does not think that any useful purpose would be served by such a discussion.

Mr. Beswick: Is the Prime Minister saying, therefore, that the weight of public opinion demonstrated at Easter will be ignored by him and that he will refuse to see this deputation?

Mr. Butler: I have nothing to add to the reply which I have given on behalf of the Prime Minister, namely, that clearly these are matters of the utmost concern to us all, but that he sees no useful purpose in pursuing the suggestion.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Prime Minister to what extent he proposes to take into account recent expressions of public opinion, such as have been notified to him by the hon. Member for Uxbridge, when considering future policy on the development of nuclear energy for military purposes.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
In formulating their policies, Her Majesty's Government give due account to views expressed by this House and by the general public. We do not consider, however, that the views which the hon. Member and his friends quite sincerely hold represent either the opinion of the majority or the best interests of this country. We are fortified in this belief by the fact that they are at variance with the policies proclaimed by both the major parties in this House.

Mr. Beswick: Whether or not that is true, will the right hon. Gentleman take into account that the demonstration which culminated on Easter Monday in Trafalgar Square was the largest single political demonstration which has taken place in this country since the war and probably of all time, and that it was not only its size but its representative character which was so impressive? Is not this demonstration of public opinion, at a time when all the major political parties are complaining of political apathy, something which we should be very unwise to ignore?

Mr. Butler: I think that that is partly covered by what I said originally, namely, that such matters are of the profoundest interest not only for our country but for the future of the human race. It is not, therefore, surprising that they should excite a great deal of interest. Equally, in


making our policy we must be governed by what we think is in the best interests of our country.

Oral Answers to Questions — RADIOACTIVE FALL-OUT

Mr. Mason: asked the Prime Minister to what extent this country has been affected by the recent increase in radioactive fall-out following the Russian and United States tests; and whether he will make a statement to allay fears now prevalent following the United States test disclosures.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
As my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General said on 19th March in answer to the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun), a report containing the results of monthly measurements for strontium 90 in rainfall in the United Kingdom up to August, 1958, is in the Library of the House. This shows some increase during the summer months, but it is impossible to say which of many factors, including increased rainfall, was responsible. In any event, we are nowhere near a level which would cause concern about human health.

Mr. Mason: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the tests responsible for this greatly increased radioactivity took place many months ago and that our monitoring station in this country would record that fact shortly afterwards? Do not these facts lead us to believe that the Government deliberately withheld information on this matter? Secondly, is there not now a case for the Medical Research Council to assess the injurious effects of increased radioactivity on plant, animal and human life?

Mr. Butler: According to the latest report which we have had, what I said in my Answer—namely, that there has been some increase in the summer months—represents the truth. This is allied with the statement that rainfall has been about 1.7 times the average of the previous three years, and it is thought that there is a connection between the two. Certainly we shall give the House the latest information which we have, and in my Answer I included a reference to that latest information.

Mr. Bevan: Are we now to look upon a heavy increase in rainfall apprehensively? I do not know what the technical aspects of the matter are. Probably hon. Members in all parts of the House share my ignorance, but the rain could not bring something down that had not gone up, could it? As the Lord Privy Seal is so fond of quoting the agreement on certain matters between that side of the House and this, may I say that if we had had our way these tests would have been stopped by us unilaterally long ago?

Mr. Butler: This is not a question relating to the wider issue of tests which the right hon. Gentleman has brought into his supplementary question. Nor can I compete with him in the simplicity with which he explained natural phenomena, but I will say that the greater incidence of rain is one of the points which has been borne in mind and reported on in the latest report which has been made available to hon. Members.

Mr. Bevan: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether. before hydrogen bomb tests started, there was an increase in radioactivity in the world when there was an increase in rain?

Mr. Butler: No one has attempted to deny that if there is more of those substances in the upper atmosphere more will eventually come down.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED KINGDOM AND GERMANY

Mr. Healey: asked the Prime Minister if he will publish the text of letters recently exchanged between himself and the Chancellor of the German Federal Republic.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir. The letters were private and confidential and I cannot reveal their contents.

Mr. Healey: While agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman that perhaps some exchanges of correspondence are better left unpublished, may I ask him whether he will request that when the Prime Minister next writes to Dr. Adenauerno doubt to express the happiness we all feel about his decision to stand for election as President of the Federal


German Republic—he will explain to him the relationship between a free Press and a Government in a democractic State and point out that nothing will do more to increase criticism of Dr. Adenauer and the German people in general than the arrogant and dictatorial tone of his broadcast on this subject last week?

Mr Butler: It is not for me to make comments either about the head of a Government or the head of a State. If in a free Parliament the hon. Member wishes to make comments, I can only leave it to him and to the discretion of his hon. Friends to see that they are received in the spirit in which they are made.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of representations made to him by the German Chancellor on the occasion of the recent discussions in Bonn, he will now make a statement on Anglo-German relations.

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister how far, in view of the recent official communication of the German Chancellor. it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to work for the reunification in freedom of the German people, the development of friendship and understanding between the British and German peoples, and the inclusion of a united Germany as an equal member of the United Nations.

Mr. J. Hynd: asked the Prime Minister (1) whether he will state in detail what evidence was produced to him by Dr. Adenauer concerning an organised instigation and encouragement of anti-German feeling amongst the British people;
(2) what reply he made to Dr. Adenauer's allegations to him of a widespread and growing anti-German attitude in the United Kingdom.

Mr R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
There has been no change in the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards Germany. Her Majesty's Government and the Federal Government remain closely linked within our common alliance. Some of the recent reports about differences between us have been greatly exaggerated. There are, of course, points on which we do not always agree. It would be surprising if there were not.

But these are differences on matters of emphasis or tactics rather than on substance. On the essential issues which we both have to face over the coming months there is full agreement.

Mr. Bellenger: I feel sure that the House welcomes the reply of the right hon. Gentleman that our relations with Germany are friendly, but he must have heard that the German Chancellor thinks that they are not quite so friendly in certain quarters. Does he not, therefore, think it necessary to make some reply to the German Chancellor, who is obviously misinformed, and at the same time tell him that there is great disappointment in this country that the German Chancellor himself played such a prominent part in the discriminatory nature of the Rome Agreement which was entered into by the Common Market Powers?

Mr. Butler: I do not think that I can usefully add to this discussion. It is clear that there are exchanges between Governments, and in those exchanges through the normal channels we have certainly expressed to the German Chancellor our belief that some of the anticipation and doubt which he had in mind were exaggerated. I believe that to be the case.

Mr. Henderson: Was not the broadcast to which reference has been made somewhat extraordinary in view of the fact that the British Government and the British people are not antagonistic towards the best interests of the German people? Is it not a fact that the representatives of the Federal German Republic are participating in the discussions now taking place with a view to securing agreement among the Western Governments before the Foreign Ministers' conference on the basis of full equality?

Mr. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman's latter statement is absolutely correct. In answer to the former point, perhaps his own observation will be taken by the quarters to which he has addressed it as expressing the view that there is not the need for the anxiety that the German Chancellor felt.

Mr. H. Morrison: Could the right hon. Gentleman find some way of reassuring the German Chancellor about the feeling of British public opinion? Is it not the case that public opinion in our country is anxious to obtain friends among the maximum number of countries of the


world and that we do not sympathise with the efforts to make mischief between us and other democratic countries, whichever they may be?

Mr. Butler: I am sure that Her Majesty's Government will be very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will certainly see that his views and those of his friends are conveyed to the source which he desires.

Mr. Hynd: The Leader of the House has not replied to Question No. 53, in which I asked for specific information about the allegations made by Dr. Adenauer and about what answers were given. As the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to an earlier Question, referred to the fact that there has been diplomatic correspondence in the matter, will he recognise that this is no longer private, because it has been announced in public by the head of the German State? Therefore, the people of this country are entitled to know what the allegations were and what replies were made to them. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the undesirability of making criticisms of the heads of foreign States, but is it not equally undesirable that heads of foreign States should make criticisms of a friendly State without giving the details of any of the allegations?

Mr. Healey: On a point of order. Is not it a fact that Dr. Adenauer is not head of a foreign State yet?

Mr. Speaker: He is a very prominent person.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is not the point in all this the distinction between a disagreement between the present British Government and the present German Government which may well exist in this highly controversial field and any evidence of general anti-German feeling in this country? Would it not be the general view of the House that we should make it clear that there is no such general anti-German feeling? Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman say, nevertheless, and despite what has taken place, that the Prime Minister will persevere in his attempts to try to bring about some measure of disengagement, if only in the form of an agreed zone of controlled disarmament?

Mr. Butler: In general, I think that the right hon. Gentleman's intervention

was a very valuable one, and I hope that it will be noted by the German Government and by the German Chancellor. I am sure that that represents the feeling in the country.
As regards his second point about the possibility of differences of opinion on policy, I do not think that there are any fundamental differences of opinion on policy, but there are differences of emphasis, notably on the question of a zone of limitation of armaments on either side of a particular line—as I prefer to express it rather than in the word " disengagement ". It is the same point. On that we are in discussion with the German Government, and I do not doubt that some understanding of our point of view is being reached by the German Government. I do not think that our differences are very great.
On the third point, I think that there was a feeling in the mind of the German Chancellor that there had been criticism of Germany in certain sections of the Press. In my view, this was exaggerated, but, in answer to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd), I cannot give the exact details of the Press statements which were in the mind of the German Chancellor.

Mr. Bevan: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to convey to Dr. Adenauer that, on a recent occasion when President Heuss visited Great Britain, there was a considerable discussion in the Press about the reception he should be accorded, and some of us, as a matter of fact, wrote to the Press at the time hoping that the British people would give a welcome to President Heuss? There has been no suggestion at all of antagonism between the German people and the British people. But it ought to be possible for us to ventilate any differences on policy without exacerbating international feeling.

Mr. Butler: On the occasion of the visit of President Heuss, I think that it was true that the President took any minor indications of what he might have thought at the time was displeasure in very good part and in such good temper that it positively improved Anglo-German relations instead of harming them. I hope that the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) will be fully understood.

Oral Answers to Questions — NEW MEMBER SWORN

Henry John Brewis, Esquire, for Galloway.

BILLS PRESENTED

HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE AND OTHER CHARITIES (NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE) CHARITY

Bill to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the Charity called the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene and other Charities in the City and County of Newcastle upon Tyne, presented by Sir Hugh Linstead; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 27th April and to be printed. [Bill 92.]

HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHOLAS (SALISBURY) CHARITY

Bill to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the Charity known as the Hospital of St. Nicholas, in the City of Salisbury, presented by Sir Hugh Linstead; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 27th April and to be printed. [Bill 93.]

JESUS HOSPITAL (ROTHWELL) CHARITY

Bill to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the Charity known as Jesus Hospital at Rothwell, in the County of Northampton, presented by Sir Hugh Linstead; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 27th April and to be printed. [Bill 94.]

POOR'S COAL CHARITY (WAVENDON) CHARITY

Bill to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the Charity known as Poor's Coal Charity, in the Ancient Parish of Wavendon, in the Counties of Buckingham and Bedford, presented by Sir Hugh Linstead: read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 27th April and to be printed. [Bill 95.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Factories Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler]

Orders of the Day — FACTORIES BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

3.36 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Mr. Speaker, I desire to raise several points of order. If you will arm yourself with Erskine May and Standing Orders, I think that you will, with respect, be able to follow the points I wish to make. For the sake of greater accuracy, I have obtained copies of them myself.
First, I should like to ask the Patronage Secretary or the two Patronage Secretaries, since there are two of them—

Mr. Speaker: If it is a point of order, it ought to be addressed to me, not to the Patronage Secretary.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I admit that, Sir. My points of order will depend upon the intention of the Patronage Secretary. I wish to ask whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed with the Third Reading of the Bill tonight.

Mr. Speaker: That is not for me. I cannot answer that. I have no idea at all, any more than the hon. Member himself.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Then I will proceed with my points of order. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that it would be entirely out of order to proceed with the Third Reading at this sitting.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It will not be out of order at all. If it is decided to do so, it can be taken.

Mr. Ellis Smith: If you will follow the Standing Orders and Erskine May, Mr. Speaker, you will there see that my case is based upon a study of those. My first point is based upon Standing Order No. 47.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Order of the Day which we are considering is the consideration of the Factories Bill. Whether or not, after that, we go on to the Third Reading is another question. We have not reached that stage yet. We have the consideration to complete. If the hon. Member has a point of order about going on to Third Reading, he had

better raise it then. We must go on with the consideration of the Bill now.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, for that advice. May I, then, have your assurance that I can safeguard my Parliamentary rights when this stage of the Bill has been disposed of and be able to raise my twelve points of order to show why it would be out of order to proceed with the Third Reading, in accordance with Standing Orders and Erskine May?

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member has a point of order about further business, we can deal with that when we come to it. At present, we are bound, by the Order of the Day, to proceed to consider the Factories Bill, and that is our first duty.

Mr. William Ross: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recollect that in interrupting a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), you said that it would not be out of order. Do I take it now that you have withdrawn that remark?

Mr. Speaker: No. The hon. Gentleman must not take that at all.

New Clause.—(RAILWAY RUNNING SHEDS.)

Where running repairs to locomotives are carried out in any premises used for the purposes of a railway undertaking paragraph (vi) of subsection (1) of section one hundred and fifty-one of the principal Act (which extends the definition of the expression " factory " by including certain premises in which the construction, reconstruction or repair of locomotives, vehicles or other plant is carried on. not being any premises used for the purpose of housing locomotives or vehicles where only cleaning, washing, running repairs or minor adjustments are carried out) shall have effect in relation to those premises as if the words from " not being any premises " to the end of the paragraph were omitted.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. fain Macleod): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This is the first of 60 or 70 Government Amendments on the Notice Paper and I think it would save time if I now said a few words generally before explaining the proposed Clause. With the exception of the half-dozen Amendments devoted either to drafting points or clearing up small defects in the Bill, all the


Government Amendments which have been tabled are designed to meet points that were raised in Committee, and are in pursuance of undertakings given either by the Parliamentary Secretary or myself.
We spent 17 days—and it was time well spent—in Committee on the Bill. We could have done it in 15 clays if the Opposition had not spent so much time in thanking the Parliamentary Secretary aid the Minister for their co-operation, but now the boot is on the other leg. If, on every one of the 60 to 70 Amendments, I were to thank the Opposition in suitable words for bringing up the points I have tried to enshrine in the Amendment, we could not get this Report stage through, even reserving the position of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) in two, let alone one, Parliamentary days. I will, therefore, cut short the usual thanksgivings that one produces on each of the 60 to 70 Amendments. I expressed my sincere thanks to the Committee during the Committee stage, and I would like to return to that point on Third Reading. In Committee, the Bill was treated in a wholly exceptional way.
This new Clause is designed to bring railway running sheds within the scope of the Factories Acts and, therefore, to carry out the undertaking that I gave to the Committee. At present, these sheds are excluded from the operation of the Factories Acts by the words in Section 151 (1, vi) of the 1937 Act. What we now propose to do is to modify that exclusion by providing that premises where running repairs to locomotives are carried out shall be factories. I am advised that this will bring within the scope of the Factories Acts all the 335 premises which the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) mentioned in Standing Committee when he argued the case so cogently.
The position did appear anomalous, and, as the House may recall, I discussed this matter with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. I think the Amendment fully meets the point mentioned, but I should add two points. First, this will still leave outside the scope of the Act places like sidings, where locomotives are simply cleaned or undergo minor adjustments, but not repairs. All railway running sheds where running repairs are carried out will be included.
The other obvious point is that this raises new points of policy not envisaged when the Bill was originally drafted, and I will have to discuss those with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. David Jones: I said in Committee that we were grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, even at this late hour, for the decision to apply the Factories Acts to locomotive running sheds. However, lest he get a strange idea about this, let me remind him that Sir Anthony Eden told the Trades Union Congress on 9th July, 1955, that legislation was in course of preparation to bring all railway installations under the provisions of the Gowers Report, and that statement was repeated in the House on the same day.
If, after having waited four years, the right hon. Gentleman now takes any credit for bringing these sheds within the scope of the Acts, let me remind him that when he introduced the Bill originally there was no mention of railways in it. It was only when the Opposition proposed an Amendment in Committee that it occurred to the right hon. Gentleman, as a sort of death-bed repentance, that he should accept it.
This is not the end of the story; it is the beginning. Railwaymen will not be content with having statutory powers for safety, health and welfare provisions applicable only to a locomotive running shed. The other sections of the railways arc equally anxious, and, far from this being the concluding chapter in this story, we shall resume in the near future our claim that the rest of the railway installations—sidings and other places where railway engines are in fact attended to—should be similarly treated.
In view of the modernisation programme that is going ahead, and the rapid introduction of electric and diesel locomotives, which make far less noise as they go along the permanent way, the danger to men working on or about the railways will be far greater than it has been in the past. It is for that reason that at an early date we shall resume our demand for the adoption of the whole of the Gowers Committee recommendations.
We appreciate that this gesture on the part of the Minister will to some extent, at any rate, relieve the position in


those dangerous places known as locomotive running sheds where clouds of steam from steam locomotives and red hot ashes brought out of locomotives that have completed their turn of duty lying about the ground creat dangerous situations. This is one of the things which will be improved as a result of the new Clause and will prevent men from continuously sustaining either minor or serious injuries.
While we appreciate this gesture of bringing locomotive running sheds under the provisions of the Factories Acts, I should like to warn the Minister now that it is not the end but the beginning of a demand for the inclusion at the earliest opportunity of all railway installations within the scope of the Factories Acts.

Dr. Barnett Stross: I rise to speak on the Clause, in which we are all interested, for two reasons: first, the reason given by my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartle-pools (Mr. D. Jones); and, secondly, a personal reason, which is the way it was originally moved in Committee.
The House of Commons is perhaps the only place where one can say what one likes without penalty or fault, provided that it is within the bounds of good taste. I imagine that the House is the only place where a medical man can possibly commit a breach of etiquette by giving away a confidence he has acquired professionally. We were all affected by the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartlepools appeared to move an Amendment which the Minister has now accepted in spirit and included in the new Clause.
When my hon. Friend was speaking I was really frightened because I knew that he was extremely ill. He was speaking with great vehemence—and I hope he will forgive me for saying this—because he was quite deaf as a result of acute middle ear infection and really running the most serious risk of not being with us at all. If we were faced with some over emphasis from him at that time it was purely for the physical reason that he could not have heard himself speaking had he spoken in normal tones. I think that all of us on the Committee are doubly beholden to him. I had the impression that railwaymen feel this matter so

strongly that my hon. Friend would have risen from his grave to move his Amendment.

Mr. Charles A. Howell: I am glad to have the opportunity of following in my remarks the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross). I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. David Jones) will not be disappointed with the new Clause, and that the Minister will be able to clear up some doubts in my mind about it.
First, the new Clause is described in the side-heading as applying to "railway running sheds ", but the body of the Clause contains the words:
Where running repairs to locomotives are carried out in any premises "—
apparently running sheds, because the wording continues:
(…not being any premises used for the purpose of housing locomotives or vehicles "—
and that is what running sheds are for
where only cleaning, washing, running repairs or minor adjustments are carried out)…
Which is which? Which does the Minister propose to give us? Does he propose to give us repairs, excluding running repairs or minor adjustments? What have we got?
At first sight, the Clause is something which we in the railway industry have been demanding for a long time, but now that we have it within our grasp I hope that it is not something airy-fairy which will go up in locomotive smoke. I hope that we shall not have a Smart Alec from outside the industry saying of an operation, "This is a running repair, not a minor adjustment. You should not read the body of the Clause, but its title."
In the industry a running shed is invariably the housing shed. Major repairs are done in the motive power depots, not in running sheds. I hope that the Minister will remove this apprehension and will assure us that the words really apply to railway running sheds. One reason why we want those sheds covered by the Bill is the structural character of the sheds and not merely the work that takes place there. It could be far more dangerous to do a minor adjustment to a locomotive in a running shed than to carry out a major repair in a motive power depôt
Many locomotive men are seriously injured in trying to open the smokebox door on the front of the engine. That is the type of thing which will be happening inside the running shed. To get the soot, clinker and ashes from the bottom of the chimney and the ends of the tubes the front door has to be opened. In doing that job men sometimes slip and fall into the pit; and lighting conditions in the running sheds are very different from those in the motive power depôts.
It is because of these and similar incidents that we want this Bill to apply inside the running sheds, so that the conditions in them may be brought up to the high standards that prevail inside the sheds where locomotives are manufactured and repaired.

Mr. Frederick Lee: We are grateful for the Minister's opening remarks, in which he pointed out the constructive work which went into the Committee stage and the fact that the Government Amendments proposed today arise from suggestions made in Committee by my right hon. and hon. Friends.
At the moment, we are discussing railway running sheds and the right hon. Gentleman has accepted a great new principle by introducing the new Clause. We on this side of the House have felt for many years that there was an anomaly here. The Minister has now recognised that fact. From my own knowledge of the engineering industry I know, and it has been pointed out to me also by many engineers who are employed in these sheds, how anomalous it was that, working in identical conditions, engineers were covered by the Factories Acts elsewhere but were not covered when they worked in these running sheds. We thank the right hon. Gentleman for accepting this new principle, but we would point out that in applying the Bill to railway running sheds we are making only a small dent in the main issues dealt with by the Gowers Reports which for so long the Government have promised to implement but which they have failed to do so far.
We are pleased, therefore, that the new Clause has been proposed. It is a great advance, in that personnel employed in

the running sheds will now be covered by the Factories Acts. The trade unions concerned with the people who work in these sheds have been pressing for many years for the implementation of this principle. We hope, however, that the fact that the Minister has now introduced the principle does not exclude the adoption of other recommendations made in the Gowers Reports on this subject. We hope that this does not mean that we are at the end of advance towards full implementation of these Reports in the industry.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The Opposition's attitude is well understood. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite welcome the new Clause as an important advance, but they would like the Gowers, the whole Gowers and nothing but the Gowers. That is perfectly understood, but such a cogent case was put in Committtee for the proposals now embodied in the new Clause that I discussed the matter immediately with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and accepted the principle. The substance of the short speeches which have now been made on the subject is the question whether the Clause gives what its side-heading says it gives. I assure hon. Members that it does. In Committee, the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. David Jones) spoke of 335 premises in which he was interested. The Clause has been drafted precisely with those in mind.
It is necessary to look not only at the new Clause but at Section 151 of the Factories Act, 1937, as we often did in Committee. That Section defines a factory, and it explains that there should be excluded from the definition of a factory places used for the purpose of housing locomotives or vehicles where only cleaning, washing, running repairs or minor adjustments are carried out. The point of the new Clause is to bring all those places where running repairs are carried out within the purview of the Factories Acts. I am sure that the Clause does that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(FLOORS, PASSAGES AND STAIRS.)

At the end of subsection (1) of section twenty-five of the principal Act (which requires floors, steps, stairs, passages and gangways to be of sound construction and properly maintained) there shall be added the words " and shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be kept free from any unnecessary obstruction and from any substance likely to cause persons to slip ".—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I beg to move, That the Clause be now read a Second time.
The new Clause, to which the Opposition have tabled Amendments, strengthens Section 25 of the 1937 Act by requiring that, so far as is reasonably practicable, floors, steps, stairs, passages and gangways shall be kept free from unnecessary obstruction and from any substance likely to cause persons to slip. This Clause, again, is intended to carry out an undertaking given in Committee. When the Opposition moved a similar Clause in Committee I suggested that its terms were a little too absolute and needed to be qualified, and this is what the new Clause attempts to do.
I will say nothing further now about it. No doubt we shall have a debate on it when the Opposition move the Amendments.

4.0 p.m.

Mr Niall MacDermot: We may reserve our criticisms of the wording of the new Clause until we cone to consider the Amendments, although all of us on this side of the House welcome it, because, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, it is in response to a point which we raised in Committee, which we feel is a useful and important one.
Its effect is to extend the provisions of Section 25 of the principal Act, which relate to the construction and maintenance of floors, passages and stairs. It is quite remarkable to remember the number of industrial accidents which occur through people stepping on or striking against objects and slipping down and falling. There used to be a section of the common law Bar which was known as the "specialists in running down cases," being, of course, cases arising out of motor accidents.
That section of the Bar continues to operate, though I am glad to say that there are fewer cases than there used to be in that field. Their place has almost been taken by the " specialists in slipping

down cases ", so many are the accidents of this kind, and so often do they give rise to dispute whether or not there was a fault by the employer or his employees which gave rise to the accident.
I think that the 1957 Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories shows that out of the total of 150,000 accidents which occurred in factories in 1957, no fewer than 12,600 of those accidents occurred through persons stepping on or striking against objects in this way. That will show the importance of this point. The new Clause deals with two matters—preventing floors, passages and stairs from being obstructed unnecessarily, and also preventing slippery substances being placed upon them. We heartily welcome the new Clause and reserve our detailed criticisms until later.

Question put and agreed to. Clause read a Second time.

Mr. MacDermot: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Clause, in line 3, to leave out from the second " shall " to " be" in line 4.
Perhaps it would be convenient to discuss this Amendment together with the next one to line 4, because the effect of the two Amendments, taken together, is to transfer the words
so far as is reasonably practicable
from the place where they now appear to the second part of the new Clause.
I do not wish to make any secret of the fact that, for my part, I thoroughly dislike the introduction of the words
 so far as is reasonably practicable 
into this Clause at all. We had a protracted and somewhat vigorous discussion in Committee about the introduction of these words into another Clause of the Bill at a place where, in my view, the case was even stronger for their omission than it is here, but we were not successful in persuading the Government on that occasion. I do not think that we would have any chance of success in trying to persuade the Government to leave out the words now in this new Clause, but I would point out that this is the


first time that these words and this qualification have been introduced into Section 25 of the principal Act.
As is well-known, the words are to be found in Section 26, which deals with the question of safe means of access and safe employment, and the duty of the employer there is to provide safe means of access, qualified by the words that he shall,
so far as is reasonably practicable, provide and maintain safe means of access.
In Section 25, as it stands now, the duty of the employer to see that floors, steps, and so forth are of sound construction and properly maintained is an absolute duty, not qualified by these words at all. There is great virtue in absolute duties, and very many of them are imposed in the. Factories Acts.
Where qualifying words such as these are introduced, experience has shown that they tend to encourage laxity in enforcement. The employers feel, when they are considering a problem, that it is not practicable to do anything about it, and the danger continues until an accident occurs. If, on the other hand, the duty is made absolute, people rack their brains and perhaps call in expert advice to find a way round the problem. Therefore, I should like to see, whenever it is at all reasonable, that a duty under the Act is made an absolute one.
Turning to the detailed wording of the new Clause, it provides, firstly, that all floors, steps, and so forth, shall,
so far as is reasonably practicable, be kept free from any unnecessary obstruction…
We feel that the introduction of the word " unnecessary " is in itself sufficient protection for the employer. If the duty which is laid upon him is only to keep the floor, and so forth, free from unnecessary obstruction, he does not need the added protection, or as I would put it, the added encouragement to laxity, of the words
so far as is reasonably practicable".
I can see that the argument is much stronger for introducing the words
so far as is reasonably practicable.
in the second part of the new Clause, namely, the prohibition on allowing on the floor any substance likely to cause persons to slip. Obviously, this is something which can occur at times unavoidably, and one only need think of

the example of a washroom in a laundry, which is a factory within the meaning of the Act. Water is bound to get all over the floor, and it would not be reasonably practicable to avoid that. I suppose that a person is more likely to slip on a wet floor than on a dry floor. That would be the kind of argument for it, and it is for that reason that we have tabled cur second Amendment. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept the Amendments, so as to eliminate these words from the first part of the new Clause.

Mr C. Howell: I do not want to bore the House by repeating the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot), but there is one issue to which I would take exception, and that is in regard to the words " reasonably practicable " and the wet floor.
There are many places where floors and passages will get wet, but, if that is so, and if the firm concerned knows that it is so, it could have a false floor put in which would take away the water, such as an iron, rough-surface staging so that the water could percolate through the false floor and be drained away. Obviously, that would be reasonably practicable, to my idea, but it might cause additional expense to the employer.
The words " reasonably practicable " can be used as an escape clause for any employer, and here we are referring only to bad employers, as we made perfectly clear in the Committee stage. If they were all good employers, we would not need a Factories Act. Therefore, the restrictions which we are trying to place on employers in the Factories Acts refer only to the not-so-good employers, who want gingering-up and forcing to do the things which a good employer would do.
On this question of floors and passages, I think that obstructions should be removed, because we not only have to deal with that question in this new Clause, but have to remind ourselves of the context of other parts of the Act, whereby it might be necessary for the staff to go through that passage, not in a normal way, but in a speedy way. I should probably be out of order in referring to other Clauses, such as those dealing with exits in case of fire, but we must not ignore the fact that in these factories passages must be available for speedy exit. Even


if the floor is wet, it need not be dangerous, because if the floor is made of iron or is corrugated, or whatever it may be, it is rough to the feet, it does not become smooth when wet, and it could quite easily be a perforated floor to allow the water to drain away underneath.

Mr. Iain Macleod: To take the last point first, I think that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) is more accurate in his reading of the second part, because we are not, in fact, here discussing the construction of the floors. The point here is the requirement that they shall be kept free from any substance likely to cause persons to slip. It is impossible to be certain about this—I am thinking of oil, among other things, which is used largely in factories—so there must be qualifying words as regards the second part.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, North, therefore, that the case is much stronger on the first Amendment. I say frankly that when I saw the two Amendments on the Notice Paper I was inclined to rely on the word " unnecessary " and to say that, this being in the Clause, the words " reasonably practicable " were not necessary. However, I have been into this carefully and have been back to my legal advisers upon it. With respect, I think the present drafting of the Clause is preferable.
There can be no question that if the Clause were drawn in the way suggested by the Opposition, a court would be bound to take note of, and in certain circumstances give effect to, the contrast which I assume Parliament meant to draw between the unqualified requirement about unnecessary obstruction and the requirement which would be qualified by the words " reasonably practicable " in relation to any substance likely to cause persons to slip. Qualifying words, of course, are not in any way new, because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, in Section 25 (3) of the 1937 Factories Act, to which we have referred before and shall have to refer again, we find:
All openings in floors shall be securely fenced, except in so far as the nature of the work renders such fencing impracticable….
The situation one can imagine here is where in a factory it is necessary, perhaps, to unload machinery from packing cases

for the running of the factory. and those packing cases would unquestionably cause an obstruction in, say, the corridor. So far, that would be covered by the word " unnecessary," but then we come to the point of how quickly can those packing cases be removed. My advice is that it would be necessary to have both the qualification " unnecessary " and the qualification " reasonably practicable ". It would be necessary to have the word " unnecessary " to permit obstructions where necessary to the work, in the case I have instanced, and also the words " reasonably practicable " to avoid imposing an unreasonable obligation if something happened as a result of its not being possible to remove absolutely and immediately, the obstruction which was necessary in the first place to the working of the factory.
There is not much between us; certainly, there is nothing between us on drafting as regards the second part. On balance, on the first part, having taken careful advice, I prefer the words I have put down.

Mr. Lee: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not seized of the important difference in the words we are proposing. According to his proposed Clause, passages are to be of sound construction and properly maintained. We are all agreed about that. Then there are to be added to the principal Act the words:
… and shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be kept free…
We are afraid of the point he was making about unloading packages. I could give the Minister hundreds of instances where, by common use, packages are deposited in a passage. After a while, space being short, a white line is put round a part of the passage, and within that place it is considered proper to store packages.
4.15 p.m.
So long as the right hon. Gentleman insists on having those words in the proposed Clause, it can be assumed that it is not reasonable to expect the factory owner not to have the passage free. If the Minister will think in terms of many of the factories which he has visited, he will realise that, because of the expansion of business, factory space tends to become too small. At that point a search is made for more space for storage purposes. On reflection, therefore, I am


sure that there will spring to his mind factories in which, previously, there were passages which were kept free of obstruction and which are now used to a large extent for storage purposes. If the Minister insists on retaining his words, it could be held that the factory was complying with the Clause while, at the same time, using part of the passages for storage purposes, whereas it is not reasonable to obstruct the passage.
I can think of serious accidents occurring as a result of obstruction in passages of this kind, especially at a time when the lights are going out and the men are anxious to get home. If the Minister will look at the graph of accidents he will find that the last 10 minutes of the working day are the most dangerous. In my day the line of the graph moved upwards very fast at this period. I suggest, therefore, that if the proposed Clause is left as it is drafted the courts could not hold that such an employer had been guilty since he could say that it was necessary to have such an obstruction in the passageway.
In our view, it is far more reasonable to state that it is not practicable to expect any employer to keep a floor in such a condition that he can guarantee people will not slip on it, since that is beyond human capacity. On this issue, however, it is reasonable to ask that passages should be kept clear, and the Minister will give an unnecessary escape clause to people who want to utilise passages for storage purposes if he insists upon the Clause in this form.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I accept most of what the hon. Gentleman has said. I am ready to look at the first Amendment, if necessary, to see if these or similar words might be appropriate. However, I have been into this closely with my legal advisers and it is possible to envisage cases in which there can be an accident —perhaps part of the roof falls in—which would cause an obstruction. It might not be physically practicable for that obstruction to be removed at once. There must be some qualifying words, such as " as soon as is reasonably practicable ". I am sure that the courts would interpret it in that way, namely, that a factory owner must keep his gangways and corridors free from any unnecessary obstruction so far as is reasonably practicable.
I think that that difference between us is small. If the Opposition are content for me to look at the matter again, I will do so, but I could not accept the words of the Amendment, in view of the advice which I have been given.

Mr Alfred Robens: We are all grateful to the Minister for the manner in which, throughout the passage of the Bill, he has been prepared to look sometimes even a third time at the points that we have put forward. On behalf of my colleagues and myself, I accept immediately his offer to look at this matter again, but I should like to add one other comment which, I hope. he will take into consideration.
We have to read this provision in connection with Section 25. which says that
All floors, steps, stairs, passages and gangways shall be of sound construction and properly maintained.
We are to add the words
and shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be kept free from any unnecessary obstruction.
We ask that the words
so far as is reasonably practicable
shall he placed after the words
kept free from unnecessary obstruction ",
because we feel that it is a question of it being reasonably practicable to make all floors, steps, stairs, passages and gangways free from any substance likely to cause persons to slip.
The only difference between us is whether we should cover the employer where he has an obstruction on a floor, step, stair, passage, or gangway which is an unnecessary obstruction. The right hon. Gentleman suggested two possibilities. The first was that of the unpacking of a packing case. The goods are taken out of the case and for some time the case is left in the gangway. As a result there is an accident. If the Amendment were accepted it would be for the courts to decide whether the packing case at that moment was an unnecessary obstruction or a necessary obstruction which had to be there for the time being.
The second possibility which he mentioned was that of the fall of part of the roof, which then obstructed a floor, step, stair, passage or gangway. That would be an unnecessary obstruction, because it would not be there for the pursuit of the business of the operatives engaged


in or around that spot. Efforts would be made immediately to clear the debris from the fall of roof. If the words 
so far as is reasonably practicable
are retained at that point, the debris could be left for some time and not dealt with as an emergency. An accident could occur and the worker would not be covered by the Bill.
If we move the words
so far as is reasonably practicable
to where we suggest, when an obstruction occurs, as a result of an accident, on a floor, step, stair, passage or gangway, the onus is placed upon the management to clear that obstruction, if it is an unnecessary obstruction, immediately. If it is not possible to clear the obstruction immediately, then it will be left to the courts to determine whether the obstruction was necessary or unnecessary. While I have no legal knowledge, I feel that in the case of a roof falling and cluttering up some stairs, the courts could hardly say that under the terms of the Clause as we wish to amend it the responsibility was that of the employer.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at the further points which I have made, together with those made by my hon. Friends, and that he will find it possible at another stage of the Bill to insert words which meet the purpose of our Amendment.

Mr Elwyn Jones: I am glad that the Minister has undertaken to look at this matter again, because it seems to me, with respect, that the words in the new Clause add very little to the common law obligation which already rests upon the employer to take reasonable care not to subject his employee to unnecessary risk of danger. The proposed words add very little to that obligation.
May I make a suggestion to the Minister? If he does not feel able to go all the way proposed by the Amendment, will he at least consider eliminating the word " reasonably " from the proposed new Clause, leaving the phrase to read
and shall, so far as is practicable, be kept free from any unnecessary obstruction.
The addition of the word "reasonably" reduces a little the obligation placed upon the employer, as has been said in many cases.
When the House was considering the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954, this point was stressed in the discussion. It was agreed to eliminate the word " reasonably " and the test became one of pure practicability, which seems to me to be the proper test. That Act was not revolutionary but was a conservative Measure of change.
I feel that at the very least it would be not imposing an impossible burden to eliminate the word " reasonably " and to state the obligation quite clearly in terms of practicability. I hope that at least that middle way will prove acceptable to the Minister when he looks at the point again.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I will look at both points. The word " reasonably " is very familiar in factory legislation and if we removed it we should be opening many doors. Although the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) is himself a distinguished lawyer. I shudder to think what the lawyers would say if we removed the word " reasonably ". We might provide them with more work.
I will, however, look at the point, as well as that raised by the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), which is at what point the obstruction ceases to be necessary to the work of the factory and becomes unnecessary. In my view. as regards a packing case, that is when the machinery for the use of the factory has been taken out and it becomes simply a container and not a conveyor, but in the undertaking which I have given I will look at both those points.

Mr. John Hobson: The hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) suggested that the words " reasonably practicable " added little to the obligation of the employer beyond that imposed on him by common law. In my opinion, it adds two strong provisions for the protection of the employee. First. it makes the occupier liable unless he can show in his defence that it was not reasonably practicable for him to remove the risk. The burden is placed on him. Secondly, it places the burden on the employer for acts of third parties for whom he is in no other sense liable.
One frequently hears of cases like the man who has been to read the gas meter


in the factory. He has nothing to do with the occupier of the factory. He leaves behind a bag of tools or a banana skin. The two risks with which the Clause deals are those of slipping and tripping. Under the Amendment proposed by the Opposition there would be different obligations upon the occupier according to whether a worker slipped or tripped. If the gas board representative left a banana skin on which a worker slipped, and the employers could show that it was not reasonably practicable for them to have removed it, they would not be liable. If he left a bag of tools, over which somebody tripped, it would not matter whether the employers could show that it was not reasonably practicable to have removed it.
I cannot understand why there should be any distinction in principle between the risks of slipping and tripping. Both are grave. I think we ought not to say that employers should be absolutely liable, even for acts of third parties, in circumstances in which they could have taken no steps to remove the risk, and I feel that in this respect it is right to treat the risks of slipping and tripping equally.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. MacDermot: In view of the Minister's co-operative attitude and his undertaking to look at this matter again, we do not wish to press the Amendment further at this stage. Before seeking to withdraw it, however, I should like to add one or two comments.
There is much force in the comments made by the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) in which he calls attention to a certain illogicality in the distinction between the two parts of the new Clause. The illogicality, however, begins in the Clause itself and not in our Amendments. It is the introduction of the word " unnecessary " in the first part and which is not found in the second part which has given risen to the whole of our argument.
One or other protection, either the qualification " unnecessary " or the qualification so far as reasonably practicable ", could be argued for. It is, however, stretching matters too far to insert both qualifications and I cannot see the need for the two. In the light of what the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington has just said,

it may be that the draftsmen, in their ingenuity, may find a way of introducing " unnecessary " in the second part and leaving out " so far as reasonably practicable " altogether or, alternatively, of taking the other course of leaving out " unnecessary ". We still feel that it is undesirable to continue to extend qualifying words of this sort, which cut down and limit the duty placed upon the employer
The second intervention by the Minister was considerably more forceful than his first. The argument adduced by the right hon. Gentleman based on the possibility of an accidental obstruction and which an employer had not had time or was not reasonably able to remove before somebody tripped over it, obviously presents difficulties from the viewpoint of our Amendment.
I am wondering whether, when the matter is being reconsidered, the Minister, in addition to the many suggestions which have been put forward, including the suggestion by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones), will consider whether it might not be possible to make the duty a stronger one and then to have a limited cutting-down of it in the form of a proviso, perhaps, in cases of accidental obstruction, but making it clear that in the ordinary case where an obstruction is, as it were, deliberately placed in the gangway or passage, an offence shall be committed unless the obstruction really is necessary.
With these words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment to the proposed Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(SAFE MEANS OF ACCESS AND SAFE PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT.)

In subsection (1) of section twenty-six of the principal Act (which requires safe means of access to every place of work) there shall be added, at the end, the words " and every such place shall so far as is reasonably practicable be made and kept safe for any person working there " and in subsection (2) of that section (which requires precautions where a person is liable to fall more than ten feet) for the words " ten feet " there shall he substituted the words " six feet six inches ".—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Brought up, and read the First time

Mr. Jain Macleod: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
When the Opposition moved a similar Clause in Committee, I said that I accepted everything about it except the words. I have, however, put down almost the identical words myself on Report. The two points about safe access and the bringing the height into line with the building regulations are obvious enough and there is only one point I should mention.
The new Clause introduced by the Opposition in Committee required that sufficient space should be provided at every workplace. I have, however, been advised by my legal advisers that a workplace which does not allow sufficient room for the work to be done with safety could not comply with the new Clause. That is why it has not been necessary to import the word " sufficient" into the Clause.

Mr. MacDermot: Of course, we on this side warmly welcome the new Clause. There is only one point on it which I should raise. As the Minister has said, he told us in Committee that he accepted everything in our new Clause except the words. There are, however, three other words which have been omitted and to which the Minister has not referred—" to and from ". We wanted to introduce into the duty of the employer under Section 26 of the principal Act the provision and maintenance of safe means of access to and from every place at which any person has from time to time to work.
The reason for that was that there have been decisions in the courts in cases in which men sustained accidents when they were not going to their place of work but were going, in one case, to a canteen and, in a case in Scotland, to a lavatory. Doubt has been cast upon the correctness of those decisions. The law, perhaps, is not wholly clear about the position and we thought it desirable to remove any doubt which exists by introducing into Section 26 of the principal Act the words " to and from " to make it quite clear that the liability of an employer remains just the same in whichever direction a man is walking.
This seems to us to be sensible enough. There may be difficulty which we have not foreseen, but, subject to this one point, I warmly welcome the new Clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(EXPLOSIVE DUST.)

In subsection (1) of section twenty-eight of the principal Act (which requires certain precautions where dust liable to explode on ignition may escape into any workroom) the words " into any workroom " shall be omitted and for the words " the dust " there shall be substituted the words " any dust that may escape in spite of the enclosure ".—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The new Clause is concerned with amending Section 28 of the 1937 Act. Incidentally, I did not intend to be discourteous when discussing the last new Clause. I will, of course, look at the point raised by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot). That I will do so is, I take it, assumed from silence on such occasions.
In the 1937 Act, subsection (1) of Section 28 lays down three specific requirements which must be taken as precautions with respect to explosive or inflammable dust, gas, vapour or substance. In Committee, it was argued with great force that one should not limit, as the 1937 Act does, this possibly dangerous accumulation of dust to the workroom itself, because the rooms that may surround the workroom could have such an accumulation of dust and with serious or fatal effects. I agree with that in principle.
The way I have done it in the new Clause is by omitting the words " into any workroom " and there will be a consequential Amendment to the Second Schedule. The effect of this is that the accumulation of dust must not take place practically anywhere in the factory. This can be achieved if we simply omit the words into any workroom "where they occur in the subsection of the principal Act.

Mr. Lee: There is little that I need add to what the Minister has said. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, we discussed this matter in Committee. It was felt that merely to confine, so to speak, the safety of the workmen to the workshop itself left out of consideration other parts of the factory in which explosive dust could easily accumulate. There


could be many places, in narrow corridors and the like, where a vacuum is established and an accumulation of such dust could occur, perhaps, even more so than in the workroom itself. We were glad, therefore, that the Minister agreed to seek to meet the point on Report.
The words that the Minister has put before us today achieve that purpose and we are grateful. In the phase into which we are moving, the possibility of there being a danger of explosive dust in works lops is greater than it used to be as a result of the different types of processes which we now see in industry. Therefore, we feel it is all the more welcome, and is applicable to the new dispensation in industry.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added t6 the Bill.

New Clause.—(WASHING FACILITIES.)

The facilities required by subsection (1) of section forty-two of the principal Act shall include a supply of hot and cold or of warm water.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr Iain Macleod: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This Clause, the last of the Government's new Clauses on the Notice Paper, although it contains what at first sight may seem a small point, is, I think, in many ways one of the most important. It implements one of the most important Amendments proposed in Committee on the Bill. It will be seen that the words of the Clause are not simply " a supply of hot water but are
a supply of hot and cold or of warm water.
They are obviously necessary, because hot water may be so hot that it may be scalding and unsuitable for washing, and cold water must be supplied with it.
We have sought to follow in this Clause the phrase which, I think, is common in a great number of regulations and welfare orders, by which over the years the provision of hot or warm water has been encouraged. Personally, I single out this new Clause from the other ones. It is an important and valuable advance, and I am very glad that we are adding it to the Bill.

Mr. Ellis Smith: As soon as I saw this new Clause on the Notice Paper I desired to, and spontaneously did, add my name to it for the sake of those whose confidence I have had the privilege of holding for so long. For the same reason it would be wrong of me not to say at least a few words in support of the Clause and about its implementation when it becomes law.
I am sure that the Minister will agree that the Inspectorate's annual reports are a tribute to the Inspectorate. It is acknowledged that those reports are among the finest documents of the kind published in any part of the world, and do credit to the inspectors department of the Ministry. We read in those reports about the effect of dermatitis. The inspectors have had the advice of dermatologists about the dangers of new processes. It was with that in mind that I unhesitatingly put my name to this new Clause.
Those familiar with industry will know that, as a result of the development of science, many new materials and processes are being introduced into industry. During the last twenty years more new processes and new materials have been introduced, especially synthetic materials, than in any other comparable period of time in the history of the world. They are having some serious effects, for instance, in pollution of the air. It would be out of order to deal with that now, but they have also given rise to dermatitis and other industrial diseases, and it is upon that aspect of the matter that I want to make a few observations.
My relationship with the officials in the Ministry could not have been better. There has been the maximum of cooperation and a readiness to give advice, and I wish that that obtained in all other parts of administration in this country. However, difficulties have arisen because the officials have not been empowered to deal with these questions in the way in which they will be dealt with if the Minister's proposal in the new Clause is accepted.
The words of the Clause are so definite that they will place upon the employers the responsibility of having to provide hot and running water. They will also place upon the Chief Inspector of the Ministry a responsibility to see that the new Clause is operated, so that the maximum benefit may be obtained from it when the Bill becomes an Act
4.45 p.m.
It would be wrong of me not to give a concrete example of what I am talking about. I do not want to develop it too far, because I have had excellent correspondence with the Department about it, and that correspondence is still going on. The Minister will be aware of the increasing use of glass fibre in the aircraft industry and in the engineering and allied industries, and, indeed, in other forms of manufacture. In addition to glass fibre being used as an ordinary process, it is being increasingly used for the purpose of reinforcing plastics, and this process of adding glass fibre on to plastics is giving rise to dermatitis.
The Chief Inspector has said at a number of conferences held with representatives of the trade union movement that there ought to be running water, both hot and cold, and that there should be ample supplies of white towels and that the towels should not be soiled with grit from glass fibre or other materials of that kind. I hope that the Minister will consult the Chief Inspector and the other inspectors with a view to getting the widest interpretation in the administration of the new Clause so that we can benefit from the experience gained by the inspectors in dealing with matters of this kind. I have seen some distressing cases which have arisen because running hot water was not provided.
I have confidence in the medical profession, but it cannot get on top of this problem of dermatitis. More time yet is needed for that. The provision of running hot water will minimise the effects of these processes in causing dermatitis. Sir George Barnett has told me of cases in which the effects could have been minimised or avoided if there had been running hot water, or if the men had played their part by using it. I acknowledge that there is a responsibility upon those engaged in work on these processes of using the facilities provided so that they may get the maximum benefit from this Clause.
I used to find that I was able to work best by keeping myself as clean as possible, and that meant that I was constantly washing my hands. In those days employers were very reluctant to agree to my doing it, but nowadays employers and the managements acting on their be-

half are more enlightened and there is not the same difficulty about taking advantage of the facilities that such a Clause as this provides.
Those engaged in industry, on both sides, can and should play their part to avoid the suffering which arises from industrial diseases like dematitis and the loss of time which those diseases involve. For these reasons, and many others I could have gone into had that been necessary, I hope that the House will give unanimous support to this proposal. I am confident it will be a big step forward.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: I rise to welcome this new Clause and to add a word or two to what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) has said. Of course, this Clause is directed to a very, very small minority of employers who have not provided the facilities referred to in Section 42 of the principal Statute in the broadest sense. My right hon. Friend omitted to draw attention to the fact that Section 42 of the Act of 1937 refers to
adequate and suitable facilities for washing.
Those are the words. I have not heard yet of an employer who did not regard the proper interpretation of the word " adequate " as including hot water.
One cannot properly remove dirt or oil or any matter from the hands after working in a factory without getting hot water to do so. Factory inspectors have always interpreted Section 42 of the principal Statute exactly in that way. I know of countless cases where factory inspectors have served notices on employers or occupiers requiring them, under Section 42, to install hot water services. They have fastened their directive on the word " adequate ", and if they have failed under that head, they have fastened it on the word " suitable " in " suitable means of cleaning" in the same Section.
My right hon. Friend is not making a great advance with the new Clause, but he is possibly clearing up a doubt which may have formerly existed in one case in a thousand where hot water supplies have not been available in factories and where factory inspectors have not picked up the fact and issued directives.
The second purpose of my short intervention is to ask my right hon. Friend, when he considers the next new Clause, to bear in mind that the fact that hot


water in factories is no less important than hot food in factories, and that they are complementary. If he regards it as essential to require all factory occupiers and owners, by Statute, to have hot water supplies, I hope that he will extend the principle to hot food supplies as well.

Mr. C. Howell: It is always interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), because one never knows how far he will delve into history or fiction. One thing he does prove is that he moves in far better circles than many of us on this side of the House who have spent many years in factories.

Mr. Robens: He is always going round in circles.

Mr. Howell: I said " better circles ", higher class circles. It is obvious that the hon. Member knows, possibly through snobbishness, although I would not like to say that it was, only good employers.

Mr. Nabarro: Of course I know only good employers. I move in the right circles and I mix in the right circles. The overwhelming majority of employers are good employers. A tiny minority are not, and they are the people who have not put in hot water.

Mr. Howell: That bears out exactly what I was saying. The hon. Member circulates in such " posh " circles, such narrow circles of " poshness ", that he does not see the necessity for the Factories Acts. As I said earlier, if they were all good employers, similar to those with whom the hon. Member associates, we would not need this Clause, nor would we need any factory legislation.
I assure the hon. Member that I know many good employers who do not provide hot water, many good employers who provide canteen facilities and a little washroom containing two or three basins and with hot water but a long way from the shop. I assure him that many departments in many factories have only a bucket of cold water which all the men it the shop have to use. There might be a tin of soft soap at the side of the bucket. Not once but hundreds of times 1 have seen men use oil and paraffin to get swarf and grease off their hands. That happens on British Railways.
I could take the hon. Member to hundreds of places where the only hot water comes from the kettle being used

for " mashing " the tea—I will not take that too far, because the hon. Member and I might then return to the argument about mashing and brewing which we had in Committee. There are hundreds of places on railway sidings and in railway cabins where no hot water is laid on. Consequently, the only hot water possibly available is that which comes from the kettle. If someone is due to make tea, then one of the worst offences one can commit is to steal the hot water required for that purpose.
The Minister is right and the new Clause is a move in the right direction. The hon. Gentleman said that the Minister would not be doing anything. In fact. he will be doing a lot.

Mr. Nabarro: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Howell: No. The hon. Member must wait until I have finished.
The hon. Gentleman was quite right to say that one cannot remove swarf, grease and dirt without hot water. If he is right, why should we deny that facility to those who need it? Why should we not force those bad employers with whom the hon. Member does not associate to provide facilities as good as those provided by the good employers with whom the hon. Gentleman does associate?

Mr. Robens: Do these words mean the provision of a supply of running hot and cold or warm water? It is important that this should be made clear. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) has not referred to running water, and there is no reference to a supply of running water in Section 42.
The new Clause also provides for the supply of hot and cold or warm water. Does that mean that if there is a supply of warm water whose temperature need be only a degree or two above that of cold water—it will be a sufficient substitute for a supply of hot water? I do not want to appear to be niggling about this. The Minister has produced a very useful Clause, and we are grateful for it. The right hon. Gentleman followed the Committee proceedings with great attention, and the number of Amendments down is a clear indication of his desire to do everything possible, within the confines of


the Bill, to provide better protection for factory workers.
I am one of those who believes that running water is very important for washing. I do not like to see cans of hot or cold water put into basins for washing. What then happens very frequently is that more than one person uses the same water, not a hygienic practice from any point of view. Is it in the Minister's mind that a supply of running hot and cold water should be provided?
The expression " or of warm water " is not very good if it means that warm water can be substituted for a supply of hot or cold water. I agree that most employers would not take advantage of the possibility, but, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has said, there is a minority which wants to run away from its obligations to the work people.
Of course, we shall accept the new Clause, but I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether the Clause should not refer to running hot water and running cold water, and whether the expression " or of warm water " should not be eliminated to make it clear that it is not intended that a supply of warm water will be a sufficient substitute.

Mr Iain Macleod: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) has raised a number of important points and has been quite right in his interpretation. The Clause does not require that running hot water shall be laid on. Of course, one hopes that in the vast majority of factories there will be such a supply, but, with great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), there are many factories in which there is no such thing.

Mr Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend answer this simple query? If there are many factories without hot water, what have the factory inspectors been doing for the last twenty-two years? They have had power to require factory owners and occupiers to install hot water supplies, and in my knowledge and experience they have given such directives in hundreds of cases.

Mr Macleod: Obviously, if the factory inspectors could make laws of that nature there would not be the slightest need to bring a Clause of this sort before the House. It is because they have no such

legal power that we need the new Clause. There are tens of thousands of factories, some tiny places employing only one or two people. Unquestionably, it would be too great an imposition on such factories to insist that running hot water should be laid on. Even though we have been dealing with very much larger factories, in a number of codes and regulations we have been content to leave the alternative provision of a sufficient supply of warm water always at hand.
The two points which the right hon. Gentleman put go together. If hot and cold water are laid on, that is an improvement, but there are hundreds of cases Where, to use the words usually included in regulations or welfare orders, there should be a sufficient supply of warm water always at hand. That is the intention of the new Clause. I think that it is something of an advance, and I hope that the House will agree to it.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Lee: I am a little concerned with the Minister's explanation that we do not have the power to insist on the provision of running hot water. I entirely support what the Minister said to his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) who, as usual, is talking instead of listening to words of wisdom. The hon. Member was hopelessly wrong on this matter. The new Clause will make a most important contribution to factory hygiene.
There are thousands of machine men working in the engineering industry who day in and day out have to wash their hands at what is called the " mystic tap ", or other coolant fluid. They have no facility other than that, apart from a bucket which a labourer may bring round and which may contain warm water. The first there has the privilege of washing in clean water, but after that everyone has to wash in dirty, greasy water, the possible result being much more dangerous than not washing the hands at all. Such conditions still obtain in wide sections of the engineering industry, and the picture which the hon. Member for Kidderminster painted was not correct.
The Clause will do a great deal of good, but I am disappointed that it does not ask for running water. Apparently, the new conditions will be met by the old method of a labourer coming round with a bucket of warm water a minute or two before lunch time. After the first three


or four men have washed their hands in such a bucket, the water is not too good. There is probably more silt at the bottom than water on top.
What inquiries has the right hon. Gentleman made about this, and why does he believe that it is not possible to insist upon running hot water? I know that in most factories—and on this point I agree with the hon. Member for Kidderminster—wash-bowls are provided. I also know that the breakage of these things must be one of the highest casualty rates of any industrial equipment. They are broken very frequently indeed. Once they are broken some firms are inclined to say, " We are not going to replace them." Then we get people putting their hands under the " mystic tap " over lathes. This is probably the way in which industrial dermatitis is bred more than in any other single way of which I know, and therefore we get back to the bad old ways.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have another look at this matter to see why it is not possible for us to insist on hot water being running hot water. I know of a great many factories where running water is provided which, because of breakages of equipment, has been allowed to go into disuse, and there may ice one or two instances in which at the moment that facility is not provided. But I think that is not a good reason for denying running water to 99 per cent. of the persons working in industry where it is possible for it to be provided. While we welcome what is being done, I should be very grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would have another look at this to see whether it would be possible to do it.

Mr Macleod: This can be done. Perhaps I did not put this clearly enough in my earlier intervention. If the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) will look at Section 42 (2) of the 1937 Act, he will find these words, which I will read, because I know the Committee is interested:
The Secretary of State"—
that now means the Minister of Labour—
may by regulations prescribe, either generally or as respects any class or description of factory or as respects the persons employed in any process, a standard of adequate and suitable washing facilities.
These washing facilities are now enlarged by the new Clause. In fact, we have

these powers and it is possible to make regulations in the sense which the hon. Gentleman suggests. If one considers what tiny little places some factories can be, it is clearly too absolute a requirement to put into the Bill itself. It is a matter that should be considered by the Minister in the light of his consideration of what regulations are appropriate.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(PROVISION FOR CANTEENS.)

The Minister may by special regulations prescribe that any factory employing more than one hundred persons on any shift shall include canteen facilities of a kind and general description necessary to furnish such persons with hot beverages and hot cooked food during breaks in work.—[Mr. Ellis Smith.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
Anyone who has had experience in industry will know the need for this Clause. I readily admit that in most large-scale establishments there are already relatively satisfactory facilities where no difficulties arise. I have been familiar with one of the most efficiently run concerns in the country, and probably in the world, which has over 20,000 employees, where there is no difficulty worth talking about. There are, however, many places employing from 100 to 400 people where the arrangements are not satisfactory.
Anyone who sees what goes on in offices and in other places knows that the provision of these facilities is a common pratice. I am not speaking critically of what goes on there, because I think we get the best results from this kind of arrangement. It has a good psychological effect. It tends to increase productivity, which is a word much used these days, and it has a very good all-round effect. Those of us who have suffered from ill-health know that a sip of warm tea at times assists to revive one and keep one going. It also assists those who suffer from respiratory difficulties. Therefore, I think that it is better to make these arrangements in an organised way.
We hear a great deal nowadays about efficiency and I accept my share of responsibility in bringing it about. If we need


efficiency in regard to output and manufacture, there should be maximum efficiency in making arrangements of this character. Efficiency of this kind can be built up only in an organised way.

Mr. Nabarro: I rise to support the Motion.
Does the hon. and learned Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Niall MacDermot) wish to intervene?

Mr. MacDermot: I was a little surprised that the hon. Member took his name off the Notice Paper.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman is wrong, as usual. I did not take off my name; I took off a complete and comprehensive Clause of the same kind as that which I am seconding, which is a different matter. I will at once explain why I did so.
After conversations with my right hon. Friend the Minister about this important principle of the provision of canteens in factories, he told me the precise position under the existing Statutes and said that he already had all the necessary powers to Implement what is called for in this Clause. I have risen to second the Clause because of the seeming illogicality of the position which has arisen this afternoon. We have just completed the discussion of a new Clause to provide washing facilities in factories. I claim that the principal Statute of 1937 gave factory inspectors all the necessary powers to require factory owners or occupiers to provide hot water supplies. The Minister says otherwise.
My right hon. Friend now tells me that he has all the necessary powers to require that canteens are furnished in factories. Plainly, the state of affairs today is that many factories employing more than 100 persons have no canteens, and no facilities for supplying hot food to workers during authorised breaks, or even for supplying hot beverages. I know of examples in Government Departments. One which springs to my mind straight away is the case of a maintenance depot in the General Post Office, where more than one hundred men are employed. It falls within the ambit of the Factories Acts, but it has no canteen and no facilities for the men employed to make themselves a hot cup of tea during a break. The argument there is that public

funds would be employed, and therefore that it cannot be afforded.
But my right hon. Friend tells me that he has all these powers, and he calls in aid Section 46 of the 1937 Act, as extended by the Factories Act, 1937 (Extension of Section 46) Regulations, 1948, Statutory Instrument 48/707. I have no doubt that the Parliamentary Secretary will have a copy of those Regulations available.

Mr Lee: The hon. Member has just said something which is most serious. He says that a Post Office depot employing many hundreds of people has none of the facilities which he outlines. Is he serious about that? If so, will he state where this depot is?

Mr Nabarro: Yes, in due course. I did not say "many hundreds "; I said " more than 100 ".
The regulations to which I have referred empower the Minister to require canteen facilities to be made available. What has my right hon. Friend done about it? All that he has done is to require that canteens should be provided, within the scope of the regulations I referred to, in the building industry in certain cases, in clay works in certain cases, and in the jute industry in certain cases. I suppose that all those employed in the three industries taken together would represent between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. of the total number employed in establishments which the Factories Acts seek to cover. Ninety per cent. or more of the establishments are not required by Statute to provide canteen facilities, although they may employ more than 100 persons on one shift.
My right hon. Friend said that he singled out the building, clay and jute industries because of certain special circumstances. I shall not relate what those are, but if I wished to do so I could go on, industry by industry, pointing out many other industries, or particular factories, by virtue of their location, certainly have a higher claim to be required to instal canteen facilities than the three industries to which I have alluded. I know many private enterprise factories, employing more than one hundred people, which are well removed from towns and shopping centres and where the workers often have to travel considerable distances, and where there are no facilities for serving hot meals.
5.15 p.m.
My right hon. Friend will have the greatest difficulty in defending himself against what I am pleading for, because in the war years we all recognised the validity of the case. We then said that to economise in food, to provide greater nutriment, to improve food standards and to enable men and women to work long hours on continuous shift work by day and by night, all factories employing more than 250 persons should have a works canteen with facilities for serving hot food, and appropriate facilities for serving hot beverages during authorised breaks. Without doing a good deal of research, I am not sure which Defence Regulation was then invoked, but in any event it has now lapsed, and the Minister no longer uses powers of this kind.
In addition to the three industries in respect of which the Minister requires the provision of canteen facilities, there are many processes in respect of which, under separate special regulations, the Minister has required mess rooms to be installed. A mess room is an unsatisfactory place. It very often contains facilities for serving only hot drinks, and not hot food. It is very often merely a place where men and women employed in a factory go, with their sandwiches, thermos flasks and mugs, to pour themselves a hot drink and eat their sandwiches. In these cases no factory-provided canteen facilities are available. I do not regard a mess room as adequate.
My right hon. Friend has told me that it would not be right to make it obligatory for an employer to provide and run a canteen if it was not being used by a reasonable proportion of the workers. That is true up to a point; there are factories in certain places where shopping centres, restaurants and fish and chip shops are close at hand, and where the employees can go out and get a mid-day meal, or can even go home for their meal, but in the generality of factories—and the Clause requires the provision of canteens only where more than 100 workers are employed on a shift—there is a reasonable case for a canteen to be provided. Most enlightened managements—and I believe they represent the majority—take the view that good surgery facilities, to attend rapidly to minor injuries and accidents in factory premises, and good facilities for

serving hot food, are essential ingredients of a high and rising level of production.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not reject the new Clause in an unqualified fashion. I consider that a numerical basis for requiring the provision of canteens in factories is preferable to the consideration of individual industries of the type now covered by the Minister's regulations. I want my hon. Friend to say, in reply, that he will use the powers which his right hon. Friend undoubtedly possesses with special reference to factories employing more than 100 persons on more than one shift, and that he will generally require them to provide facilities for hot food of a standard to which we grew accustomed in the war, and which have largely lapsed as a result of the withdrawal of the Regulations.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Richard Wood): As he so often does, my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has liberally facilitated my reply. He has already given the House a good deal of the information that I was preparing to give it. In one or two respects, however, my hon. Friend was a little mistaken, and the first important respect in which he was mistaken was in regard to his impressions of my right hon. Friend's powers to require the provision of hot water and hot meals. As my right hon. Friend explained, because he had not the power to require hot water he was asking the House for it in our last discussion. Act. I will quote from it. It says:
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster pointed out that the power to insist upon provision of such facilities as is suggested in the proposed Clause already exists in Section 46 of the 1937
Where it appears to the Secretary of State "—
which, as my right hon. Friend has explained, means the Minister of Labour—
that owing to the conditions and circumstances of employment or the nature of the processes carried on, provision requires to be made in relation to any of the matters to which this Section applies for securing the welfare of the persons employed "—
which includes this matter of canteens—
…he may make special Regulations requiring such reasonable steps to be taken in connection therewith ".
and so on.


That Section has had a limited use, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster pointed out, although he thought is unreasonable that the reason for that limited use should be that it was extremely difficult to place obligations on factories to install canteens which, for one reason or another, might be very little used.
If we were to accept the proposed Clause the position would not be in any way altered. As my hon. Friend explained, the Section has been used in certain cases. There are many industries in which mess-room facilities are obligatory. Therefore we should not advance matters if we accepted the proposed Clause.
I will certainly consider very carefully what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster said about the need to extend canteen facilities. My right hon. Friend already has the powers to do this. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South if, after that undertaking, he would be good enough to withdraw his Motion.

Mr. Nabarro: Before my hon. Friend sits down, may I point out that there has never been any difference between us as to the powers being there? What I wanted to get from him this afternoon was that he would start using those powers in order to furnish the factory canteens for which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent. South (Mr. Ellis Smith) and myself have been pleading. Could not my hon. Friend be a little more expansive—not expensive—and give me a modicum of comfort in this important matter?

Mr. Wood: I thought that my hon. Friend would get a modicum of comfort, as he so often has before, from my undertaking that I would consider very carefully the weighty words he has uttered this afternoon, and consider further whether my right hon. Friend ought to use those powers more liberally than he has done in the past.

Mr. Lee: I was not clear whether the Parliamentary Secretary was saying that the powers now at the disposal of the Minister were to be used in a very different way in the future from what they have been in the past. Is that a fair interpretation of what he was saying? If so, the House will probably be more happy about

it. I was not clear whether that was the undertaking upon which he was asking my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) to withdraw his Motion.
I agree with the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) about the good we had from wartime regulations. We established a tradition in which the actual figure was factories which employed about 250 people. It is a pity that we did not put that figure, which is about the right one, into permanent legislation. The figure in the Clause which we are now discussing is also probably about right. Merely to remove a wartime regulation which laid down that important principle without replacing it in any way is a retrograde step. Indeed, it takes us back beyond 1904, when the regulations were first applied. To leave matters as they are would be not merely to stand still but would be to condone a very retrograde step.
I am one of those who fed in workshop canteens during the war, and I certainly say that it was a very great advance on the prewar position. The Parliamentary Secretary said that in some cases factory people would not use canteens, which is true, but to discriminate is unfair to those who will use them. Take the wartime regulation figure of 250, of whom 150 would not use a particular canteen. Are we to argue that we shall not allow the 100 people to have the right to such facilities? That would be most unfair to them.
A most important health issue arises in connection with this matter. It takes one's mind back to one's days in factories. To have the proposed facilities for feeding is very important for reducing the amount of industrial time lost through bad health. I know of many places where men sit down, either on the benches or against the machines, in the very atmosphere in which they have been working all day and night. They produce sandwiches from their pockets and consume them where there are no proper facilities for eating or for brewing tea. To keep workers in the workroom atmosphere and to deny them facilities for obtaining a hot meal is very bad from the points of view of employee, employer and the nation.
The Minister knows that much time is lost in industry through industrial accidents and industrial disputes—a very


small amount in this case—and that the time lost through illness attributed to industrial conditions is far above those combined figures. The proposed Clause would have a great effect in reducing that figure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South and I know huge factories where the organisation is as high as one could get, but the majority of workers in Britain are employed in small factories and not in large concentrations of thousands of people. Therefore we are not discussing exceptions to the rule, which are really the large factories and not the small ones. I hope that the Minister will agree to look at the matter again, or will tell us that there is now a determination to use the regulations far more stringently in regard to industrial feeding than ever before.

5.30 p.m.

Mr Nabarro: In making this very important contribution to our debates, does the hon. Member know that I asked the Minister of Labour a Parliamentary Question on 20th March seeking to elicit from him the number of factories in this country employing more than 100 persons and I was told that there were 12,368? The Minister went on to say:
I am afraid I have not the information to enable me to answer the other questions.…
The " other questions " dealt with the number of factories employing more than 100 persons which did not have works canteens, so we do not even know the strength of the case we are talking about. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that he ought to repair the deficiencies in his statistical bureau in the Ministry at an early date.

Mr Lee: Was the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) asking about factories employing fewer than 100 people?

Mr Nabarro: No, my Question was:
To ask the Minister of Labour how many factories in Great Britain employ more than 100 persons; and, in respect of such factories, how many, respectively, have works' surgeries, with a fully-qualified nurse or equivalent in attendance throughout working hours, and works' canteens to serve hot meals." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1959; Vol. 602, c. 78-9]
The Minister could not give me the answer to that Question. That reveals a sad deficiency in his statistical arrangements.

Mr. Lee: I am grateful to the hon. Member. This is a vital point, because it shows that we do not know and have not the necessary data to understand the problem we are discussing. I have not got the figures, but I am fairly sure that a very considerable number of people employed within the provisions of the Factories Acts work in factories where fewer than 100 people are employed, which is the relevant point in this new Clause.
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary has now realised the importance which the House attaches to this matter. The human issue must be the centre of it, but we are also entitled to ask the Minister to take into consideration the economic issues and the industrial results which flow from this kind of thing. In these days I am sure medical authorities could give revealing figures of the results of having to feed in insanitary places and having to eat cold meals, sandwiches and so on without provision being made for hot meals to be served.
This is a very important subject, and I hope the Minister will find it possible to say that there is determination to ensure, by the use of regulations or by enshrining something in this Statute, that we shall have a big improvement in the feeding facilities available. If he could enlarge a little on what he said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South to show that he is seized of the points we are discussing and resolved that in one of the two ways we have mentioned there is to be an improvement, the House will agree to let this matter go. If he cannot do that, it may well be appropriate for us to register our worry about this matter in the Division Lobby. If the hon. Gentleman could say something which will make us feel that as a result of this discussion we are to see an attempt made by the Minister to introduce better conditions, I feel sure my hon. Friend would withdraw his Clause.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I have listened to every word in this discussion and the discussion going on this afternoon. In this case I must cross swords with my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and fully support what the Parliamentary Secretary said. I do not think the two Clauses we have been discussing have any real connection in principle. Provision


of hot water is something which every factory automatically must ensure. I have a fair amount of experience of compulsory provision of canteen facilities. It could not be lost on the House that the cost of the provision of some of these canteen facilities, particularly for small concerns employing only 100 workers or so, is very considerable. In almost every case their provision must be by means of subsidies, and very often it is very costly for any company to undertake that.
Often—I repeat often—such facilities are not used by the workers because their homes are near, or there are plenty of other facilities of a more varied nature within striking distance of the factory. Then, unfortunately, the canteen provided in the factory is a tremendous expense providing a facility for only a small number of persons. When we reach that stage we are asking manufacturers and businesses to do something which is quite uncalled for. The Parliamentary Secretary reminded us, and those of us in business fully recognise it, that factory inspectors can require facilities to be provided where the workers need them and there does not seem to be any alternative. I have always found factory inspectors very enlightened in these matters. We never find them particularly difficult. The workers get a very fair deal from them.

Mr Nabarro: How does the factory inspector come into the matter of canteens?

Mr Harris: I am surprised that my hon. Friend asks that. If he has had much to do with factories he should know that they have an extremely close interest.

Mr Nabarro: I do not wish to quarrel with my hon. Friend, but let us get down to the statutory position. The factory inspector has no power to direct a factory management to instal a canteen. The only person who can insist on such installation is the Minister by using more liberally the powers he already possesses, but he will not use those powers. That is my quarrel with him; he is idle. I am sorry, I did not see him sitting at the end of the Front Bench.

Mr Harris: Obviously my hon. Friend is prepared to find many more difficulties than many of us find. I have found fac-

tory inspectors ready to discuss these matters with workers, and if the facility is obviously necessary they require that it shall be made available. It would be an unnecessary obligation on any business or factory to accept this Clause and have to undertake this provision irrespective of the number of people who would find it suitable to use the facilities provided.
I fully support all the words used by the Parliamentary Secretary. I noticed during the discussions this afternoon an extraordinary unholy alliance between my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster and the party opposite. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite are encouraged by that alliance.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: There is nothing unholy about it; it is holy.

Mr. Harris: To many of us it may appear a little unholy, but that is only a passing reference. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster that the mere fact that one disagrees on this matter is based on one's own approach to the problem, but I have had a fair amount of practical experience, and I consider the view put before the House by the Parliamentary Secretary is the correct one.

Mr. A. E. Hunter: I want briefly to support the proposed new Clause which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) with the usual sincerity which he shows for the welfare of the people. It seemed to me that the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary was not logical when he said that his right hon. Friend already had the necessary powers. If that is so, why does he oppose the Clause? It gives the Minister power to make regulations that employers in factories where there are more than 100 employees in a shift shall provide canteen facilities.
Hon. Members will remember that during the war the Minister used special defence powers to enable canteens to be set up so that employees got well-cooked meals, hot drinks and were able to avail themselves of the necessary canteen facilities that were so essential at that time. If it was essential for workers to get cooked meals and hot drinks in wartime, it is equally as essential in peacetime. If the Minister, in spite of the inconvenience of wartime and with the lack of facilities, could persuade employers to provide


canteen facilities in factories, it seems to me that in peacetime the right hon. Gentleman has a much easier job.
I know that most good modern employers provide canteen facilities. I have been in some canteens, of both large and small employers, that are a credit to this nation. They are fine canteens. I have even seen some with flowers on the table and table cloths, with good cutlery and crockery. There are some factories, however, which have no facilities even to make tea or to eat sandwiches in comfort. There is little more than a shed.
The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris) said that some factories are too small, or that some employers do not employ enough people to. justify the provision of a canteen. I do not think that that view will hold water. I know of an employer who employs fewer than 60 people, yet he has spendid canteen facilities. He has a deep freeze and each day his employees can get hot and well-served meals.

Mr. F. Harris: The basis of my main argument was that many workers do not use canteen facilities in sufficient numbers to keep them satisfactorily in existence.

Mr. Hunter: The argument that some employees will not use a canteen is not an argument if three-quarters of them want to use it. One must allow for those who do not want to fall in line with the rest. If some employees would rather have sandwiches in preference to a good hot meal when it is available, it is their own concern to some extent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) said that there is probably no other country in which there is a larger number of small factories. Some of them are a long way from the shops. I can recall a number of factories which are probably two or three miles from a shopping centre. There is not a restaurant or café near at hand. During wet weather I have seen employees from a factory stand in the rain by a coffee stall, having a cup of coffee and sandwiches.

Mr. Lee: Quite a number of progressive employers will not permit employees to remain in the precincts of the factory during the meal break. They insist on their going to proper canteens.

Mr. Hunter: I agree with the point of my non. Friend. A room in the factory

should be set aside where an employee can have his meal, read, talk, or play chess, draughts, or dominoes away from the warehouse, engineering shop, or workshop.
I feel that in moving this new Clause my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South is being up to date. The facilities which my hon. Friend suggests should not be denied to employees. Perhaps a worker has six, seven, eight or 10 miles' journey before he reaches his factory in some of the big towns and, therefore, often has a hurried breakfast. It is essential for the good health and welfare of workers that facilities for a well cooked meal should exist.
This proposal would also be of advantage to the employer as well as the employee. As hon. Members know, modern large firms realise that canteen and welfare facilities of the type suggested are for their own benefit as well as that of the employee. Even though the Minister said that he will not accept the new Clause, I hope that he will have second thoughts about it and will accept it.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Ede: It seems to me that the Parliamentary Secretary proved too much in the answer which he gave. He referred back to the Factories Act, 1937. The war did not actually break out until 1939 and therefore during the whole of the war the Factories Act, 1937, was in existence. Yet it was found necessary during the war not to rely on the Factories Act, which was legislation, but to have a special Regulation under the Defence of the Realm Act, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) said, fixed the minimum number of employees where the provision of a canteen was compulsory at 250.
The Government made a clean sweep—they now boast that they did it—of all the facilities provided under the war-time legislation. We have been assured from time to time that where war-time legislation was beneficial it would pass from temporary legislation into permanent legislation. There can be no doubt from what my hon. Friends who are acquainted with the factory system have told us that there is a considerable lack of these facilities in factories which under the wartime regulations were compelled to have canteen facilities.
We all hold in very high respect the sincerity of the Parliamentary Secretary in the discharge of his public duties. I want to make it clear that I am not making a personal attack upon him. I have been a Parliamentary Secretary myself and have had to get up and rely on the brief brought to me from the box to the bench, and I know of his difficulties. I point out to him, however, that it is deplorable that my hon. Friends should be able from their knowledge of the factory system, which has not been impugned even by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris), to point out we now have in some factories, apparently known even to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who knows only about factories run by good employers—

Mr. Nabarro: I know about factories that do not have canteens because they have the impertinence to ask factories that do have canteens to take in their employees who cannot get a hot meal in their own factories and who go to adjoining factories and use their canteen facilities. That is a wholly inequitable state of affairs.

Mr. Ede: I am thankful to the hon. Member for Kidderminster. I know that he expects to interrupt everyone, and he has done so fairly liberally this afternoon. However, what he said is helpful.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to say something that will enable us to feel that at least the standard in effect during the war, suitably adapted to present-day circumstances, will be embodied in a special Clause, such as that moved by my hon. Friend, or that he will give a pledge that the powers, which he assures us are already in the 1937 Act, will be vigorously implemented by the Minister.

Mr. D. Jones: The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris) spoke about factory inspectors discussing the matter with employers and employees and reaching an amicable agreement. The trouble is that in so many cases the final word rests with the employer. If the employer says " No ", nothing the factory inspector seeks to do can be implemented. As I understand it, there is nothing in the Statute, and I am not sure that Section 46 of the 1937 Act gives the Minister the power which the Parliamentary Secretary claimed that he has.
The Parliamentary Secretary called in aid Section 46 (1) of the 1937 Factories Act, which provides:
Where it appears to the Secretary of State that owing to the conditions and circumstances of employment or to the nature of the processes carried on, provision requires to be made in relation to any of the matters to which this section applies for securing the welfare of the persons employed or any class of them, he may make special regulations "—
and so. Subsection (2) has this to say:
This section applies to the matters dealt with in the foregoing problems of this Act, to arrangements for preparing or heating, and taking meals…
I submit that if an employer provides a mess-room with a gas cooker and a hotplate, he has met all the provisions of subsection (2). There are very many mess-rooms in factories in this country, both on the railways and elsewhere, where, when the employers are called upon to provide facilities, they do no more than provide a hotplate and a gas ring. That is all the men have.
I submit that a reasonable interpretation of these words means that, provided the employer provides a mess-room and puts in a gas ring and hotplate, he has met all the requirements of Section 46 (2). But that is not to provide a canteen. It means that a workman who has to take his meal on the job will probably be able to borrow a frying-pan, will fry a couple of sausages on the gas ring, put a plate on the hotplate, boil his can of tea, and have his meal in the mess-room. There are thousands, indeed millions, who are doing precisely that today. That is not a canteen. It is not even providing a hot meal.
When the Minister moved the Second Reading of the Bill many months ago now, he said that the primary purpose of it was to write into permanent legislation those powers which had been given to him and his predecessors under Defence Regulations. As I understand it, the Defence Regulations have been wiped out. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said, what is wrong with writing this provision into the Bill? In the last analysis, it is the Minister who makes the regulations. He has the complete power. As he goes about the country, he must know that in very many parts of his constituency and elsewhere there are factories which are miles from anywhere where all the facilities the employees have are facilities to


take their meals with them in the morning and queue up in the mess-room for the use of the gas ring or gas stove or hotplate and perhaps a kettle. That is all there is.
Is the interpretation 1 have placed upon Section 46 (2) a reasonable one? The interpretation of this Section may conceivably be the reason why, in the three industries mentioned by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), canteen facilities were provided not under the Statute but under the Defence Regulations and the Regulations made by the Minister. Is that the reason why they have not been extended? I should have thought that to write this new Clause into the Bill or, at least, to reconsider the matter with a view to writing something in in another place, would be desirable in the interests of efficiency.

Mr Nabarro: If I may correct the hon. Gentleman, the Orders in the three industries to which I referred were made under S.I. No. 707 of 1948 and Section 46 of the main Statute, the 1937 Act. They are in no way associated with Defence Regulations.

Mr Jones: If the interpretation I have put upon these words is not the right one, I shall be corrected. But, reading the Section, it seems to me that the provision of a mess-room with a gas ring and hotplate would meet the requirements. If I were an employer, I should be perfectly willing to challenge any request under the Act to do anything more.

Mr Wood: If I may take, first, the last point made by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones), it is still the fact, whatever he says about it, that if my right hon. Friend chose to make certain regulations under his powers under Section 46 those regulations would he the important matter which would have to be followed. As I see it, under Section 46 my right hon. Friend already has the powers which are asked for in the new Clause.
I want to be as helpful as I possibly can. I sense, in the discussion that we have had, a realisation of some of the difficulties which my right hon. Friend would inevitably face in trying to exercise his powers under the Act. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) made an important

point about wartime experience. There are two things I want to say about wartime experience. The first is that the reason that the regulations that he mentioned were made under the Defence of the Realm Act and not under the Factories Act was purely the desire for speed.
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, regulations made under this Act have to go through a certain procedure, whereas regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act could be much more quickly implemented. Secondly, it is necessary. when hon. Members are arguing from wartime experience, to remember the very different conditions which existed then and the far greater lack of eating facilities available in those days.
I have considered this point and what regulations my right hon. Friend would make extremely carefully. I am in this difficulty. To make some kind of numerical standard, either the one sugested in the new Clause or even a different one, would inevitably bear extremely hard upon many employers who provide perfectly adequate eating facilities, but in whose factories these further facilities, if they were provided, as certain hon. Members have pointed out, would be very little used.
I am quite convinced that these matters must he considered on their merits. I have undertaken to make a careful examination of the position in the light of the discussion we have had today. I will certainly consider whether my right hon. Friend could use more freely the powers he has under Section 46. I would only point out that acceptance of the new Clause, as I think hon. Members realise, would not make any difference to the position. I have given the undertaking, and I will certainly carry it out, to make an examination to see whether my right hon. Friend should use his existing powers more freely.

Mr. Lee: The Parliamentary Secretary has given us a clear statement, which, for my part, I should be inclined to accept, that he will ask his right hon. Friend to look at the powers which he already has and consider whether he can use them to better advantage than hitherto. I take it that if, in the course of his discussions with his right hon. Friend, it is found that the powers which


exist now are not sufficient for those purposes the Parliamentary Secretary will consider tabling an Amendment in another place to implement what he has said to the House.
6.0 p.m.
I am sure that the discussion that we have had has shown the Government how keen the House is about this matter. I am sure that the House will be well advised to wait and see what happens in another place, or perhaps the Minister at some later date could say that he intends to do certain things along the lines laid down in Section 46 (2) of the 1937 Act. I would be willing to leave the matter there on the promises that the hon. Gentleman has given to the House.

Mr Ellis Smith: I have no right to speak again except with the permission of the House and I will not take advantage of that.

Mr Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles Mac-Andrew): Yes; the hon. Gentleman has a right to reply.

Mr Ellis Smith: I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with this, as it is another concrete example which shows the correctness of the line that was taken earlier. As we get one undertaking after another we shall soon want to consult you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, with a view to printing a new Bill before the Third Reading. That question may come up later. As I am confident that the Parliamentary Secretary will consider the matter with his right lion. Friend before the final stage of the Bill, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion

Motion, and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1. —(CLEANLINESS.)

Mr Wood: I beg to move, in page 1, line 10, to leave out "less than three" and insert "more than seven ".
The Amendment gives effect to an undertaking which I gave in Committee, and is in two parts. First, by inserting the words "more than seven " it ensures that my right hon. Friend will not be able to prescribe any period longer than seven years within which a factory must be repainted. The Amendment also deletes the words "less than three ", which meant that a lesser period could not be prescribed. It would be no pro-

tection to the worker in the factory to debar my right hon. Friend from prescribing periods of less than three years for painting if he thought that that was necessary in the interests of cleanliness.

Mr Lee: This point was discussed at great length in Committee and there was substantial agreement between both sides on the desirability of introducing some such words as the Minister has now tabled on the Notice Paper. We are grateful for the Amendment and accept it. We feel that it will probably do a very good job of work, and I have no wish to oppose it in any way.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 —(DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES.)

Mr Wood: I beg to move, in page 2, line 1, to leave out "plank ".
I want to assure the House that there is no sinister significance in our proposal to omit the word "plank ". This will, as the House will probably realize, bring the wording of the Clause into line with that of Section 25 of the Factories Act. The word "plank " crept into the original Clause for some undefined reason. The omission of it would strengthen the Clause because the provisions of Section 25 of the 1937 Act would then be more widely applicable.
I am sure that the House will be familiar with the case of Hosking v. De Havilland Aircraft Co. Ltd. (1949), in which it decided that a plank laid across a duct by workmen, and used by them as a way across the duct, was a " gangway ". I hope, therefore, that the Amendment will not give rise to any difficulty. There is a further practical objection to the word "plank ". As there is a standard 9 in. plank it is incongruous to talk of a plank which could be 18 in. wide.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 2, line 2, after " placed ", insert " above".—[Mr.Wood.]

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 2, line 12, at the end to insert:
(IC) For the purposes of this section a ladder, stair, or gangway shall not be deemed to be securely fenced unless it is provided either with sheet fencing or with an upper and a lower rail and toe boards.
There was considerable discussion in Committee about this point, and hon.


Gentlemen on both sides expressed the view that the existing protection was insufficient, particularly for the worker who might be walking across a gangway. He might slip and lose his foothold and be in danger of sliding under the rail into a dangerous substance below. We therefore suggest that there should be this additional protection either by fencing with solid sheet fencing, or by having two rails, with toe boards at the bottom.

Mr MacDermot: I am sure that the House will welcome the Amendment. What it has done is to borrow from the experience gained under the building regulations. The Amendment prescribes with some particularity the secure fencing required in these cases in which there are very high risks indeed, namely, the risk of people falling into vats or pits containing dangerous, corrosive or poisonous liquids and matters of that kind.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4. —(DANGEROUS FUMES AND LACK OF OXYGEN.)

Mr Wood: I beg to move, in page 3, line 20, at the beginning to insert:
Subject to subsection (4) of this section".
I think that it would be convenient if we could take the next two Amendments together with this one, in page 3, line 21, to leave out "either", and, in page 3, line 28, to leave out from "rope " to the end of line 32 and to insert:
(4) Where the confined space has been certified by a responsible person as being, for a specified period, safe for entry without breathing apparatus and the period so specified has not expired, subsection (3) of this section shall not apply, but no person shall enter or remain in the space unless he has been warned when that period will expire.
The first two Amendments pave the way for the third, which is the significant one, and about which I should like to say a word. The third Amendment is to meet a point, and to honour an undertaking, which my right hon. Friend gave in Committee when he said:
There is an obvious danger, in that he has not been told when the time will expire… If I have not succeeded in meeting it, I will redraft to meet it on Report." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing C'ommittee B,27th January, 1959; c. 173.]
This is an attempt to meet the point, and I hope that it will satisfy the House that it ensures that the worker in these confined spaces will have been clearly

warned when the safe period will come to an end, and when, therefore, he will have to leave the container if he is not to be in danger of the consequences.

Mr. MacDermot: I think that it was I who raised this point in Committee. I would advise the House that it has been quite fully met in the Amendment and that we are satisfied with it.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 3, line 21, leave out " either ".

In line 28, leave out from " rope " to end of line 32 and insert:
(4) Where the confined space has been certified by a responsible person as being, for a specified period, safe for entry without breathing apparatus and the period so specified has not expired, subsection (3) of this section shall not apply, but no person shall enter or remain in the space unless he has been warned when that period will expire. — [Mr. Wood.]

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 3, line 36, after" of", to insert " dangerous ".
I think that the next similar Amendment, in line 38, could also be considered now.
The only purpose of the two Amendments is to ensure that the fumes about which we speak in the Bill are the dangerous fumes, and, therefore, the word " dangerous " is added in each case to make that clear.

Mr. MacDermot: The Amendments are logical and not objectionable. This is something of an innovation in that the Amendments are making good an omission in the original Act. The particular phrases with which we are concerned here are borrowed from the original Section 27 of the 1937 Act. No doubt by an omission then the qualifying word "dangerous " was left out. The Government have done well to insert the word here.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In line 38, after " off ", insert " dangerous ". —

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 3, line 38, after " removed ", to insert:
 and the space contains no other material liable to give off dangerous fumes".
This Amendment deals with a slightly different point. In Committee, the right hon. Gentleman opposite moved an Amendment to ensure that any sludge or


other deposit that might give off fumes should be removed. We did not accept the wording of that Amendment because it was considered that it would be quite impossible in some cases actually to remove other materials which might give off fumes, because there might be such things as the rubber linings of fuel tanks which could not be easily removed. The Amendment is designed to meet exactly that point. I hope that it meets it in a way that is satisfactory to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause5.—(STEAM BOILERS.)

Mr Wood: I beg to move, in page 4, line 38. to leave out from " examination " to " may " in line 43 and to insert " but the regulations ".
Perhaps we might take with this Amendment the Amendments in line 46, and in page 5, line 1.
I think that the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) will be particularly interested in this, because it was in reply to him in Committee that my right hon. Friend gave an undertaking. It was suggested that the expression " extensive repairs " might be too vague and my right hon. Friend undertook to try to find a more precise expression.
The purpose of the three Amendments is to rewrite Clause 5 (1) to give my right hon. Friend, when he makes special regulations under that Clause, to prescribe in them exactly what kind of repair should be followed by an examination by a competent person. For example, we may have to use some such phrase as " repairs liable to affect the safe working pressure of the boiler."

6.15 p.m.

Mr Arthur Palmer: I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for his reference to our discussions in Committee on Clause 5, which deals with the inspection of boilers. It is quite true that, earlier, this was described more or less as the forgotten Clause, but I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that we succeeded in lighting a small fire in Committee and building up some controversial pressure.
I should like to make a general point which I think has a bearing on the way in which it is now proposed to make a change to meet the point which my hon. Friends raised in Committee. It would be

correct to say that the changes proposed by the Minister to Section 29 of the principal Act in the matter of inspection of boilers all go in the one general direction. The intention is to remove from the Statute detailed provisions which have been laid down over a long period to ensure safety in the operation of boiler plant and to make it now generally a matter for ministerial regulations.
As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, the Minister told us in Committee that he would be guided in making his regulations by the recommendations of the expert Honeyman Committee. I should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would tell us what progress that Committee is making. The Committee is not only to look at boiler practice in relation to the normal type of factory and power station, but also at boiler plant for exchangers in nuclear power stations. The changes proposed, therefore, have been drafted in such a way as to allow for the continuance of various emergency requirements until new regulations are ready which will depend on the recommendations of the Honeyman Committee. The Amendment now proposed is designed to meet the point which we on this side of the House made in Committee about the difficulty of defining extensive repairs.
We were told in Committee that, in practice, no difficulty had arisen because of the use of those words, but I am grateful for the attempt which has been made to meet the point that we raised. This may be just a feeling on my part not shared by my hon. Friends, but I think that, unfortunately, the Amendments take us further in the direction of even more statutory regulations governing boiler inspections. Not only is the regular routine inspection every fourteen months to be subject to unforeseeable regulations in the future but the repairs after examination are now also to be left over and to depend upon the recommendations of the Honeyman Committee.
I should have preferred to have seen an attempt made to define the word " extensive ", with general safeguards, in the Statute, but the Parliamentary Secretary has told us that we must now proceed by way of regulations. That may be all right, but it would be a great pity if the statutory safeguards which have always been laid down in the terms of the statutes themselves from the beginning of


this type of industrial legislation were now lost and we had too flexible a system of variation under regulations.
There is a final point which I put to the Parliamentary Secretary, which may be due to some misunderstanding on my part, but about which I should like to be certain. There is in the Clause we are now considering, in subsection (2), a provision which enables, or will enable, the Minister legally to continue to make exemptions under the existing law until the new Act takes effect. That is quite all right and one can accept it in relation to the statutory period of 14 months between inspections, but I should like an assurance that that holding power, to put it that way, available in the meantime to the Minister to continue to make exemptions which are necessary to make the existing legislation work, is not now to extend to inspection after repairs. I have rather hinted that it does not, but I should like to be sure.

Mr. Wood: I think that the answer to the hon. Gentleman's last question is, " Yes, it does not extend," but I will make myself quite clear about that, and let the hon. Gentleman know. On the main part of his speech, I should like to add that, naturally, it is my right hon. Friend's intention to get the views of the Honey-man Committee on this matter and to see what that Committee advises. It would seem to be the sensible thing to do, and that what that Committee advised would be the best phrase to use to meet this point.
The effect of the Amendment, at the very least, would mean that the Minister would introduce into regulations a more satisfactory phrase than the one against which the hon. Gentleman complained —the phrase " extensive repairs " —but until the Honeyman Committee gives its advice it is not possible to be more precise in my answer to the hon. Gentleman. I have taken note of his point, and either I or my right hon. Friend will let him know as soon as the Honeyman Committee gives us advice on this matter.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 4, line 46, at end insert:
(7) The Minister may by special regulations prescribe the manner in which a steam boiler, together with its fittings and attachments, is to be examined after any such repairs as may be specified in the regulations; and where such

repairs are carried out to a steam boiler after it has been examined under subsection (6) of this section, then, notwithstanding that the period prescribed under that subsection has not expired, the steam boiler shall not be used in any factory until the examination prescribed under this subsection has been made.
In page 5, line 1, after " section ". insert
for the words ' every such examination ' there shall be substituted the words ' every examination under this section ' and ". — [Mr. Wood.]

Clause6. — (MEANS OF ESCAPE IN CASE OF FIRE.)

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 5, line 22, at the beginning to insert:
(1) The council of the county or county borough shall, as respects England and Wales, be substituted for the district council throughout sections thirty-four and thirty-five of the principal Act (which relate to means of escape in case or fire); and accordingly,

(a) paragraph (a) of subsection (14) of the said section thirty-four (which substitutes the London County Council for the district council) shall be omitted;
(b) in subsection (5) of the said section thirty-five (which modifies the section in its application to London) there shall be substituted, for the words from " as if references " to " to London ", the words " as if subsection (4) were omitted ";
(c). the references to the district council in subsection (2) of section one hundred and sixteen and subsection (2) of section one hundred and fifty of the principal Act shall be construed as including references to the council substituted by the foregoing prohibitions of this subsection; and
(d) the reference in subsection (5) of section one hundred and twenty-eight of the principal Act to the duties of the district council under that Act shall be construed as including a reference to the duties of the council of a county borough under the said sections thirty-four and thirty-five.


(2) Any certificate issued by, or notice given by or to, the council of a county district under the said section thirty-four before the coming into operation of subsection (1) of this section shall after the coming into operation of that subsection have effect as if it had been issued or given by or to the county council; and the district council shall send to the county council a copy of any such notice given within twelve months before that time and of any such certificate.

Mr. Speaker: There are a number of consequential Amendments later in the Bill.

Mr. Wood: I was about to ask you, Mr. Speaker, if we might discuss at thesame time the Amendments in line 23, the first Amendment in line 25, that in line 29, that in line 37 and the third Amendment in page 6, line 15. That, I think, is the complete list.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, I think that all those Amendments may be discussed together.

Mr. Wood: The House, or at least those hon. Members of the House who were members of the Committee, will remember a long discussion which we had on this general point as to which council should be the certifying authority and should issue certificates for fire escapes from factories. It will be remembered that it was the original intention of the Government, as it still appears in the Bill, that the district councils should continue to issue fire escape certificates, and it was only after very considerable argument —argument which I recognised had been entirely against the view which I at first expressed that the Committee decided that the transfer of functions should be made and that the fire authorities should from now on be responsible for this certification.
I should like to make quite clear —I think it was the general view, though possibly not the unanimous view, of the Committee —that this change implied no dissatisfaction with the work which had been done by the district councils in the past. In fact, if I may so assure the House, there are a great many district councils whose record in this matter of certification is extremely good. Although I shall mention no names, I would say that it is rather better than that of some of the other councils to which we have transferred this work. It may be that it is still exercising the minds of various hon. Members of the House whether the Committee was right in the decision which it took. It may be suggested, and I have heard it suggested, that this job, which involves a good deal of going in and out of factories and necessitates friendly relations between the inspecting authority and the factory occupier, would be better done by what I might call the more local local authorities. That is the first argument that is suggested.
Secondly, it is put forward that this work is closely related to the work of planning and building control which is at present carried out by district councils, and, therefore, it would be better, so it is argued, if the two jobs were still kept together. Thirdly, it is pointed out that there might be dangers of conflict between the fire prevention officers and the district councils. Lastly, it is pointed out that the changes will certainly involve a good

deal of transfer of paper, and the resulting confusion, certainly at the beginning of this exercise, might be fairly considerable.
Having considered all these matters, am quite convinced that the decision which the Committee took when it decided to transfer the functions to the fire authorities was the right one; and I am so convinced because of the irresistible logic, at the present time, as well as in the Committee, of the convictions strongly held by a number of Members of the Committee to the effect that, this being a fire job, and being as closely connected as any job can be with fire matters, it should be in the hands of the fire experts —that is, the fire authorities.
That was the basis on which I think I am right in saying the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Greenwood) rested his case, and on which a number of my hon. Friends rested the case for the transfer. I am certain that it is the strongest argument that can be used, because, as I see it, it would be illogical for the two functions to continue to be divided. That is the reason we were persuaded that the change should be made.
6.30 p.m.
There is one further matter. Hon. Members will have noted that there is no mention of Scotland in the Amendment. That is not an oversight. As a number of hon. Members know, these things are slightly differently organised, as so many things are differently organised, north of the Border. Consequently, the same Amendment would not deal with the position in Scotland. This matter is being considered, and it is the intention of the Government, if the House agrees with the principle embodied in this Amendment, to put down an Amendment to regularize the position in Scotland when the Bill goes to another place.

Mr Anthony Greenwood: This Amendment applies a principle contained in one I moved on behalf of my hon. and right hon. Friends in the Standing Committee, and I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for meeting us by introducing it, just as I also thank him for his helpful approach to fire questions throughout our discussions in Standing Committee. The hon. Gentleman has very properly stated the general grounds upon which we base our case; but, for the benefit of those who were not present


during our earlier deliberations, perhaps I may spell it out in rather more detail than the hon. Gentleman has done.
Our main contention was that under the 1937 Factories Act the authority charged with the task of certifying that the means of escape in facories was adequate was the district council which, at the time that Act was passed, was the fire authority. The 1947 Fire Services Act, however, made the county councils and county borough councils the fire authorities. That change, which many of us opposed at the time when my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) introduced it, left the non-county borough in the position of having to issue certificates on fire matters without the necessity of using an officer specially trained in fire and fire prevention work.
It seemed to us that it should be the fire authorities which had the task of doing this work, and I hope that when the Measure goes on to the Statute Book the Minister will see that the special knowledge of the fire services and the fire prevention officers will be used fully. There have been great developments in fire prevention and in other aspects of fire work since the Act of 1947 was passed, and there is now a great fund of knowledge and experience available for preventing the kind of disasters which from time to time happen in factories.
I echo what the Parliamentary Secretary said about the attitude which was adopted by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to the smaller local authorities. I do not think that during the proceedings in the Standing Committee there was a single word of criticism spoken of the local authorities or the staff they use. I will read to the House the point of view I expressed on behalf of the Opposition. I said:
We certainly do not want to go on record as being critical of the smaller types of local authority or their officials… Nor do we wish to be on record as being critical of the qualities of the officers discharging these functions. They are all excellent at their own jobs, but their own jobs, as the Minister conceded, in most cases are very different from the job of advising on the best way of preventing fires … We do not criticise the quality or achievements of the officials concerned, but because of the multiplicity and onerousness of their other duties, combined with the fact that qualified health inspectors are very difficult to come by nowadays, it would

be wise to relieve them of this responsibility and entrust it to officials specially trained in fire prevention work." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B,3rd February, 1959; c. 269 and 270.]
The case made from both sides of the Committee was that at present public health inspectors were being used to advice on a matter completely outside their ordinary professional experience.
The Government accepted the principle of the Amendment and we were pleased that they did so. I am happy to know that apparently there is no intention on the part of the Government to go back on that. At the same time, it is right for us to face the fact that certain difficulties have been created by this change in the Bill. The local government associations, such as the County Councils Association and the Association of Municipal Corporations, have stressed the difficulties which were frankly touched upon by the Parliamentary Secretary himself.
For example, the County Councils Association draw attention to the situation which will arise in Kent, where the Kent County Fire Authority covers the area of the County Borough of Canterbury but the Kent County Council and the Canterbury Borough Council will continue to be responsible for certifying means of escape. They draw attention also to the position which arises where there are joint fire authorities, as in the case of the County of Worcestershire and the County Borough of Worcester.
The Association of Municipal Corporations stresses a rather different aspect of the problem and emphasises, among other points, that the non-county boroughs will still have considerable responsibilities as regards the passing of plans for factories. I will quote an extract from a letter written to me by the Association:
District councils, as building byelaw authorities, have to pass the plans of new factories and it would clearly lead to extra administrative work, confusion and additional cost to factory owners if building plans were approved by byelaw authorities and then, after the building had been constructed, the fire authority required alterations to be made to satisfy Section 34.
That is a fair point to make, but I should have thought that these are purely administrative difficulties, that they can be resolved administratively, and that all that is needed is good will, co-operation and suitable administrative arrangements for consultation between the various local


authorities concerned. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that it is the intention of the Government to promote proper arrangements for consultation between the local authorities, and will agree that it would be unwise at this stage to make further amendments in the law which would have the effect of making consultation mandatory upon the local authorities concerned.

Mr Geoffrey Rippon: I rise to express doubts about the Amendment in its present form, but in doing so I would emphasise that I do not criticise in any way its policy and purpose. I am concerned about whether the intention of the Amendment will, or indeed can, be carried out.
Undoubtedly my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) were both correct when they said that an anomaly has arisen as a result of the Fire Services Act, 1947. The county councils and the county boroughs are now the fire authorities. Prima facie, therefore, it seems obvious that they should be responsible for carrying out these functions under Section 34 of the 1937 Act. Fire prevention is a matter for the fire authority; indeed, it employs expert fire prevention officers for the purpose.
In those circumstances, I will not complain that there should be a local government Bill to adjust functions as between the various types of authority. I will not complain that the result of this Amendment will be that three sets of officials, instead of two, will have the right to enter private premises and will have the responsibility between them. Nor am I concerned with the fact that district councils will retain other functions under the Factories Act, 1937, relating to workers' health, drainage and matters of that kind. As was pointed out, there is no connection under the Factories Act between drainage and workers' health and welfare, on the one hand, and fire prevention on the other hand. There is no statutory or other difficulty which I can see in separating those functions.
Nor would I say that it is anything more than just illogical to make this Amendment in respect of factories while still leaving district councils with their responsibilities under Section 60 of the Public Health Act, 1936, for determining what is the proper means of escape in

respect of shops, flats, institutional and other such buildings over two storeys high.
All I am concerned with is that if the Amendment is enacted there will be a clear conflict of authority between the fire authority carrying out its new duty under Section 34 and the district councils carrying out their bye-law functions under the Public Health Act, 1936 —their functions under that Act to approve the plans of the proposed factories submitted to them.
The hon. Member for Rossendale said that there was no difficulty in the matter and that it could all be settled administratively. It is not quite clear what the administration is to be under Section 34. There is nothing in the Amendment which says that the fire authorities will have any responsibility for dealing with plans. The Minister, of course, retains power to make regulations to that effect. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary can help us a little about the position in practice. It may be, as the hon. Member for Rossendale said, that the plans will be sent first to the district council as the bye-law authority and secondly to the fire authority to carry out its functions under Clause 34. In that case there may be difficulty in so far as the local authority may approve plans for one purpose and the fire authority may seek to amend them for another.
A greater difficulty might arise if the builder of a factory sends a duplicate set of plans to the fire authority and both authorities reach their decisions simultaneously, one approving a structure of wood and the other stating that it must be a structure of steel. They have both made their decisions and they are both functus officio, but there is a clear conflict in their decisions. If in those circumstances both are unenforceable, we have created a statutory nonsense.
The hon. Member for Rossendale said that all this can be done by consultation. There is no difficulty about that at present. There is power to consult, and indeed local authorities ought to consult at present. I should have thought that it was much better to have voluntary consultation, but we must accept that in this case there ought to be something stronger. I suggest that the district council, which has the primary responsibility as the bye-law authority, should


still issue the certificate but should he under a statutory duty to consult the fire authority on this aspect of the matter. That would ensure consultation in every case.
I do not ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the Amendment. I ask him, before the Bill is considered in another place, simply to consider this aspect of the conflict of duties which may arise under the Act.

6.45 p.m.

Mr Hunter: When the Parliamentary Secretary began to move that Amendment he gave the impression that he was opposed to it, but when he finished he gave his reasons for having moved it. Section 34 of the Factories Act, 1937, lays on district councils the duty of examining factories with a view to issuing certificates as to means of escape. These duties have been carried out by the district councils for many years, and there is no evidence that they are behind in this work. In fact, my evidence is to the contrary. It is that the district councils have done remarkably well in examining factories and in issuing certificates and that there has been close co-operation between district councils and fire authorities.
The point which I want to make is that the Minister has not had consultations with the district councils through their associations. That is the information which has been given to me, and I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with the matter. I also understand that the Association of Municipal Corporations strongly opposes the Amendment. There has been no consultation with the local authorities concerned through their associations. It seems to me wrong in principle for the Government to impose an important and far-reaching change in a Bill without consulting local authorities when their associations are available for this purpose.
The district councils are very keen on their work. They are in the local community. Unless the Parliamentary Secretary gives some reason for this lack of consultation it may give the impression that this is an attempt to transfer powers and to give them to the county councils at the expense of the district councils. I very much hope that the right hon.

Gentleman will clear up these points when he replies.

Sir Cyril Black: I should like to support the main point made by the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter). I must confess to being very doubtful about the wisdom of the transfer of powers and duties which is envisaged by these Amendments, but, however doubtful I may be on that point, I am in no doubt at all as to the fact that the Government have gone about this matter in the worst possible way. If they wanted to create difficulties with local authorities and local authority organizations, they could not have been more successful.
It seems to me wholly wrong that on matters of this kind decisions should be taken and should be placed on the Notice Paper in the form of Amendments before the House without any kind of consultation, so I am informed, between the Minister and the local government bodies. Whatever the merits of this proposal may be, it is contrary to practice, unwise and, I think, involves an element of discourtesy that there should have been no consultation with the people who are vitally concerned.
I point out to the Minister, furthermore, that what he is seeking to do in these Amendments is directly contrary to the whole trend which is taking place in the reorganisation of local government, because what the Minister of Housing and Local Government is trying to do, wherever possible, is to transfer powers and duties from the larger local authorities and to make the district councils more effective, more representative, more influential and more important than they are at present.
I should very much like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether the Minister of Labour has had any consultation in this matter with the Minister of Housing and Local Government and, if he has, what is the attitude of the Minister of Housing and Local Government, because what is proposed to be done in this matter is contrary to the whole trend of reorganisation of local government which is taking place throughout the country.
Reference has already been made to the anomalies which will be created if these Amendments are written into the


Bill. The point has already been made that the district councils will still have the same kind of powers in respect of other classes of property such as flats, tenements, shops and other buildings more than two storeys high, as it is proposed to take away from them in respect of factories. It seems to me to be a most extraordinary decision to take away these duties in respect of factories from the district councils while leaving with them the duties in respect of other classes of property.
Reference has been made to the duplication of work that will be involved, to the overlapping of powers and duties and to the additional administrative costs that may well be involved. If the Amendments are adopted, we shall have three different bodies dealing with matters of this kind. There will be, first, the fire authorities; secondly, the district councils in regard to the provisions of the principal Act relating to workers' health and welfare; and, thirdly, the factory inspectors.
I am quite satisfied that the right way to deal with this matter would be to leave the duties as they are at the moment, with the district councils, but to make it obligatory upon the district councils to consult the fire authorities before reaching a decision. That would, in a statutory form, bring the fire authorities into the matter. It would, by compulsion, mean that they would have to be consulted on any matters with which the district authorities were dealing, but it would still leave the matter as it is at the moment with the district authorities while making the admitted experience arid knowledge of the fire officers available in dealing with these matters.
I very much hope that there will be further thoughts on this matter and that a decision more in line with the present development of local government may be reached.

Mr Sydney Silverman: I do not intend to detain the House for more than a minute or two. I was not a member of the Standing Committee and I certainly would not pretend to be an expert on fire prevention. It seems, however, as, if there were considerations which might induce not merely the Government but my hon. Friends to reconsider the matter.
I understand from what the Minister has said that the Government were at first satisfied to leave the responsibility where it was and that they had approached this matter from the viewpoint of leaving the responsibility where it has always been, namely, with the district councils, which include the non-county borough councils, many of which represent large bodies of people and have a great deal of experience. If the Government were looking for occasions on which they might change their mind in the light of representations made to them by the Opposition, I can recommend to them a number of much more suitable occasions for such changes of policy than the one they have chosen. On this occasion, although I say it with some regret, I think that they have accepted arguments leading them to change their mind which might well have been resisted.
If the Government, or if any responsible person or authority, were saying that there was some loss of efficiency, some neglect, some lack of responsibility or ineffectiveness of some kind, which required the change that they are now proposing, that could have been considered on its merits and considered with other things and might, in the end, have been the decisive or conclusive consideration.
That, however, is not the Government's case. It is not the case put forward to them, I understand, in Committee by my hon. Friends. It is conceded that there is no complaint. In moving his Amendment, the Minister went out of his way to say that no kind of criticism whatever was implied in making the change. So far as one can see, it is merely a concession to some kind of administrative tidiness.

Mr. Reader Harris: The hon. Member ought to know that there was plenty of complaint.

Mr. Silverman: That may well be. The hon. Member will, however, forgive me for dealing with the argument presented by the Minister for the Amendment. If there are other and better arguments, my mind is sufficiently open to listen to them when they are deployed. I have, however, heard nothing of any complaint from the Minister and I am dealing with the arguments in favour of the Amendment as they seem good to the Government.
The Minister said that there was no such complaint or criticism. If he likes to say that he has changed his mind about that or would like to withdraw and say that, on the contrary, there are many complaints, that would create a totally different situation. I see no anxiety or enthusiasm, however, on the part of the Minister to get up and say that the real reason for the change which he is proposing is that the existing position is inefficient. He does not say so at all.
Even if that were so, I should have thought that the proposal made by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) of providing that in the discharge of these responsibilities it should be statutorily obligatory on the local authority to act in concert with the fire authorities, would meet any such criticism of that kind. So far as the Minister put forward the case—and I think my hon. Friend put it in exactly the same way—some logical compulsion or administrative tidiness has made it reasonable to make this change.
The position is not administratively tidy after the Amendment is made. It has been made quite clear by the speeches which have been made so far that logical and administrative anomalies, and quite substantial ones, remain after the Amendment is made. Neither on administrative tidiness, therefore, does the case seem to be made.
It seems to me that if the rest of the arguments are more or less evenly balanced—and, I suppose, it might fairly be said that they are—there is one overriding consideration which should tilt the balance against the Amendment rather than in favour of it. The hon. Member for Wimbledon said that the Amendment was against the present trend of transferring functions to local authorities. If it were so, that would be a good reason. I am afraid, however, that it is only too much in line with what the tendency has been over the past ten or fifteen years.

Sir C. Black: I was speaking of the trend in the last two years or so. I agree with the hon. Member about the tendency over ten or fifteen years.

Mr Silverman: I am glad that we agree. Unless there is an overwhelmingly compulsive reason for taking functions away from local authorities, they ought to

be left where they are. If there has been a trend towards taking functions away and if the trend is now against it, the change is a good one.
Many things have been taken away from local authorities which they were carrying out with reasonable efficiency. In some cases, one has to concede that it was necessary to make the change. Nevertheless, necessary or not, it left the local authority with diminished responsibility and scope and made local government, to that extent, less real and less live than it was.
Democracy in most countries depends far more on the discharge of governmental representative functions locally than centrally. The more we have of such functions in direct control of the local authority, so that the people who administer the functions are in constant touch with, and constantly answerable to, the people who elect them to perform them, the better service we do to democracy and to keeping alive interest in representative governmental functions.
It seems to me, therefore, that any proposal to take away further functions from the local authorities must be looked at with extreme care. I do not say that it has to be looked at in a hostile spirit—certainly not. It must be looked at from the viewpoint of whether it is necessary to make the change. If it is necessary to make the change, we should make it without hesitation, but unless there is a compelling reason or where the balance is fairly even I should have considered it much better on general considerations, on the ground of general public policy, not to denude the local authority further of its power, its authority and its administrative scope.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Reader Harris: Whenever I listen to doctrinaire arguments I always become a little frightened. No doubt doctrines and theories have their place, but in matters of life and death practical considerations are of supreme importance. I am supporting this Amendment proposed by the Minister, the principle of which was accepted by him in Committee as a result of an Amendment proposed by the Opposition, and I have no doubt in my mind that what is being done is the right thing. I speak with some experience, having been the negotiating secretary of the National Association of Fire Officers


for the last fifteen years and seen how the 1937 Act worked in practice.
I am going to say straight away to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) that there is a compulsive reason why the duties of certifying factories means of escape should now be removed from the district councils and placed upon the fire authorities. The overwhelming, compulsive reason which the hon. Member wants for it is that, at the time of the Keighley fire, about twenty years after the 1937 Act procedure for certification was instituted, still less than 50 per cent. of the factories of this country had been certified. That is the overwhelming, compulsive reason which the hon. Member requires for supporting this Amendment.
The hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) was quoting from a letter from the town clerk of Heston and Isleworth, which I also received, and who was in turn quoting from a brief given him by the Association of Municipal Corporations, which says that everything has been lovely in the garden for the past twenty years. I have no doubt that the Borough of Heston and Isleworth, seven-ninths of which I have the honour to represent, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham representing two-ninths of it, has done its duties admirably and that there is no criticism attaching to the borough council which has now certified 90 per cent. of the factories in the constituency. However, I am able to tell the House, from what I have heard from members of the National Association of Fire Officers, to which Association pretty well all the fire prevention officers belong —90 per cent. of them, at least—that approximately half of the district councils have not over the last twenty years ever taken the trouble to consult the fire authorities about certifying means of escape.
To certify means of escape without consulting the chief fire officer or the officers in his department seems to me sheer madness. I admit that half the district councils do the sensible and obvious thing, but a great number of them do not. It seems to me, therefore, that there is the most obvious need for seeing that the fire authorities now do this job, which is essentially a fire prevention job.

Sir C. Black: Would the hon. Member not agree that the difficulty he mentions

could be completely overcome by the simple expedient which I have suggested of making it obligatory for the district councils to consult the fire authorities? If that happened then we should have 100 per cent. consultation instead of 50 per cent. consultation, and the conditions which the hon. Member says are satisfactory in 50 per cent of the cases would then be satisfactory in 100 per cent. of the cases.

Mr. Harris: I am now going to tell the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black), that that just would not work, and it would not work for this reason, that merely to certify a factory as having suitable means of escape at the time when it is built or the Act is passed is only half the battle. Indeed, it is less than half the battle; it is about 10 per cent. of the battle. The important thing is the follow-up inspection. I can tell the House this, that I should think that of the factories certified under the 1937 Act procedure the district councils never again went near 90 per cent. of them to see if the means of escape were still being maintained.
The only people who can do that job properly are the fire prevention officers and the fire authorities, because the fact is that every fire brigade officer has some fire prevention experience and every part of this country is covered by a fire brigade and there is an officer in charge of every single square yard of this land. The station officers, the officers in charge of the fire stations, know the buildings in the areas of their stations; they know every factory and they know the factories which need regular follow up inspection.
Not only is the job almost beyond the district councils, but it is a job which is beyond the factory inspectors because there are not enough of them. The only people. who can do this satisfactorily—and there are factories which ought to be inspected at least once a year—are the fire prevention officers.

Mr. Rippon: My hon. Friend is suggesting that the district councils have fallen down on the job. Will he explain why he thinks the county councils would do better, bearing in mind that the London County Council has certified only 21 per cent. of the factories and, according to the Minister's own evidence before


the Royal Commission on Local Government of Greater London, many firms have made frequent application without result?

Mr Harris: We went into all this in Committee. The reason is that a district council has to put its officers on doing this job of certifying the means of escape and those officers have other responsibilities as well. They have responsibility for examining drains and a host of other things. Inspection of means of escape from factories is only a minor part of their duties, and they can give only a limited amount of time to it.
If we now remove these duties and give them to the fire authority we give them to a complete department, for there is a fire brigade department which can give a great deal more time to them than can a district council.
There has been some argument about the anomaly which will arise by reason of the fact that district councils will still have duties under Section 60 of the Public Health Act, 1936. This is a matter I very much want to deal with, I intend at some suitable stage when we have time for it to suggest that Section 60 of the Public Health Act should be altered to give some of these powers where they properly ought to be given, to the fire authorities who have experience, even of flats and offices and shops, which, perhaps, other officers of the district councils have not got.
For these reasons I hope that the Minister will stick to his guns on this matter. It is a possible point of criticism that he did not consult the local authorities' associations. I sympathies with him there. It was not entirely his fault, because the Opposition moved an Amendment in Committee, and after a long day's debate, in which the Minister was simply overwhelmed by arguments from both sides of Committee, he accepted an Amendment; but there was, perhaps, not much time 'or him to consult the local authorities.

Mr S. Silverman: He could have done so since. Has he done so?

Mr Harris: Whether or not he has done so I do not know, but had he consulted the local authorities' associations I know what would have been the result, because there is in existence an important

body called the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council, set up in 1947 by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who appointed me a member of it. I had the honour to be appointed a member of it by him in 1947, and I have been a member ever since. There was a special committee of the Advisory Council on 2nd January when all these matters were discussed. I am bound to say from what I heard of the attitude of the associations that I do not think the Minister would have got very much help from them because their view was, " What we have, we hold."

Mr. D. Jones: Will the hon. Member say whether or not that committee was officially consulted by the Minister?

Mr. Harris: As far as I know, it was not consulted at any time by the Minister either before or after the introduction of the Bill. It was a point of criticism we had. I think the Advisory Council thought at the time it ought to have been consulted before the Bill was drafted. So far as I know it was not.

Mr. S. Silverman: What is the point of having a Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council if we do not consult it about fire prevention?

Mr. Harris: My own view is that would have been a very good thing if the council had been consulted, but the difficulty is that it is convened by the Home Office and this Bill is a Ministry of Labour Bill. I think that one of the difficulties from which the Minister of Labour has suffered all along in dealing with the Bill is that so many of the matters in the Bill are not Ministry of Labour matters but Home Office matters. The Bill's fire Clauses are the concern of the Home Office. the health Clauses are the concern of the Ministry of Health, and there are no doubt Clauses which are the concern of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The Minister of Labour has a fearful job when he introduces legislation dealing with factories. His attitude in Committee to the many suggestions which came forward from both sides was most helpful, and I hope that he will stick to his guns with this Amendment.

Mr. C. Howell: I am very pleased to have the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris). I am only sorry that


some hon. Members opposite, who were not selected to serve on the Standing Committee which considered the Bill, have been so busy that they have not been able to read the OFFICIAL REPORT of its proceedings. If they read it after their contributions tonight, they will be somewhat ashamed of what they have said.
I could not care less about the prestige of district councils. I am concerned about the lives of those working in factories. Nor am I concerned with local authorities dealing with the exits from shops and with other matters which have been mentioned and which have nothing to do with factory legislation.
Some of the biggest closed shops imaginable are to be found in the departments of local authorities. Some officials do not even speak to one another. For personal reasons they dislike one another. I was a member of a committee of a local authority which was dealing with a major housing project. I also happened to be a member of the fire authority. The chief fire officer told us that he could not get his appliances to the housing estate which I had been discussing earlier. No one had consulted him when the estate was planned.
There might be a fire in a factory which had no means of access available to fire appliances. There could be a factory in which there were wide passages and markings on the floors to show where obstructions were not permitted, and where all personnel could leave the buildings as quick as lightning, but from which personnel could not get out via the back or front doors in case of fire. That is the sort of matter in which a fire prevention officer is interested. He is also concerned with how to get his appliances to a factory to deal with any fire.
In Committee, I quoted a letter from the town clerk of Birmingham indicating that the chief fire officer of the city was quite happy about the present arrangement. However, that got back to the chief fire officer and he wrote to the town clerk and to me complaining that he had been misunderstood. Incidentally, from this it is obvious that many local authorities were consulted about this matter. The letter says:
On the question of the responsibilities of chief fire officers, I have had a discussion with our Chief Fire Officer here. He was apparently a technical adviser to the committee of

the Association of Municipal Corporations which considered the Government proposals for the Bill when it was being drafted "—
it is perfectly clear, therefore, that the Association was consulted—
and he took part in the discussions with the Ministry during the drafting stages. He is, personally, happy with regard to the terms of the Bill. He informs me, however, that the National Association of Fire Officers, the Fire Brigades' Union and about half the country's chief fire officers are of opinion that the Bill does not go far enough ".
7.15 p.m.
I represent a constituency whose chief fire officer, although quite happy with his arrangements, says that most of the other chief fire officers are not happy about the present position, so there is obviously something wrong. Referring to those officers who disagree with the chief fire officer of Birmingham, the letter goes on to say:
They would like the Fire Service to have powers of enforcement rather than be merely authorised to act as an agent of local authorities and H.M. Inspectors of Factories.
That is exactly what we want.

Mr. Rippon: How is Birmingham affected, since it is both district council and fire authority?

Mr. Howell: What applies to Birmingham applies to other areas. The hon. Member will follow my argument if he will contain himself and allow me to finish and not himself get on fire.
Speaking of the chief fire officer of Birmingham, the letter goes on to say:
So far as he is concerned, however, he does not support that view and is happy with the present arrangements, under which the Fire Service have a duty of advising anyone who seeks advice.
I do not want there to be the option of seeking advice. I want the fire authority to be satisfied about the fire conditions of every factory which is built or changed.
As the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth said, a fire prevention officer would be able to visit factories every twelve months. In view of the new conception of modern production, there might be a complete change-over in methods. What was not dangerous in 1958 might be dangerous in 1959.
The hon. Member said that fire officers knew about fire prevention. A fire prevention officer has to have six months' special training in addition to his


ordinary training before he can become a fire prevention officer. Hon. Members have spoken of sanitary inspectors and other inspectors making such visits. Is it possible that they would be competent to make proper inspections without having had six months' special training? More often than not a sanitary inspector is also a meat inspector and responsible for other matters. He is a Jack-of-all-trades, but the one which he understands least is fire prevention.
A sanitary inspector or other local authority inspector might even connive at something which was dangerous from the fire point of view. When this matter was discussed in Committee, I pointed out that hon. Members were sitting in a room the doors of which opened inwards. Perhaps hon. Members do not see the significance of that. If there is a fire and the people in a room want to get out quickly, and the door opens inwards, that constitutes a danger. Such an arrangement has been responsible for many fatalities, both in this country and in America. There have been serious losses of life in fires in cinemas when doors have opened inwards. During a fire in Chicago, children were killed because the doors of a building opened in that way. That is the sort of thing which a sanitary inspector would not notice.
In Committee, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) referred to the structure of a Coventry factory where there was a fire 10 minutes after most of the personnel had left. That fire spread so rapidly that there might have been a great loss of life. A fire prevention officer is trained to recognise such things. If a fire authority has to certify a factory as being fire-proof, it is worth offending district councils who want to remain in their little domains as the certifying authorities.
Hon. Members have said that it should be made obligatory for local authorities to get advice. The Clause makes it obligatory to get a fire authority's approval. When the hon. Member said that the district council could do that, I agree that it can and always has been able to do it, but there have been so many cases where it has not been done that it has now been agreed by the Minister—and I hope that he will not go back on his undertaking—that it is essential that there should be

a certificate of fire prevention and fire protection from the fire authority to cover all new factories and any changes in existing factories.
I asked hon. Members to remember that the proportion of factories coming within the district council's responsibility will be very small. They will still have to go to the district council for building certificates, but the fire prevention certificate must be that of the fire authority. It is not taking any other responsibility away from the district council.
The Minister himself, in Committee, had to agree that we had adduced so many points to emphasise the need for such a Clause that he accepted the principle of our proposals. As he said earlier tonight, he accepted the principle but not the whole of the wording. He has now had an opportunity of seeing the whole of the wording and I certainly commend the resulting Amendment to the House.
I hope that hon. Members opposite will believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) was quite sincere when he said that we have no disagreements with, and are making no criticisms of, the district councils and their officers. We are saying that the officers themselves have not the necessary training which it is only possible for the fire service to have.
I am quite certain that the Association of Municipal Corporations and other authorities, a number of whom have written to me—and I have had a letter from an association today—telling me that the Clause now meets with their approval, were alive to what was happening during the Committee stage of the Bill. I am quite certain that if they had had any grievances on these matters at that time, knowing that an Amendment had been tabled which was eventually accepted by the Minister, they would have gone out of their way to write to some of us, as other associations did, to tell us that these proposals would whittle away their powers and do something which they did not want.
The last thing that the House ought to consider is the loss of prestige, especially when we are concerned with the possible loss of life. We know what happened at Keighley, where some of the conditions were condemned ten years previously and not put right. They would have had to he put right if the


fire prevention officer had had the right to go into the premises. I say to hon. Members who were not on the Committee —those who were have heard these arguments time after time—that a fire prevention officer could be working in a street, testing hydrants, or something of that kind, and see something in a factory which, to him, was a horrifying fire risk and yet have no authority to go into the factory to inspect and make a report.
We are seeking to have the fire authority recognized as the only authority that should deal with fire protection. This Amendment goes a very long way to doing that. It will provide that in future fires there should be a better means of exit for personnel and a better means of access for the fire authority. That means that a fire could and probably would be brought under control much more quickly. I say with absolute sincerity that the House has a duty to those who have to earn their livelihood in factories to make those factories as safe as it possibly can from fire. The Factory Inspectorate has the job of making a worker as safe as possible from machines. Fire prevention is something which does not come under its control and needs to be brought in.
I hope that the Minister will put this Amendment into the Bill. If we weigh the prestige of the district council against the overwhelming necessity of considering the lives and limbs of the people who work in factories, I think that even some hon. Members opposite, who have some trepidation about the writtling away of local authority powers. will realise that the balance is well weighted in favour of the workers inside the factories, in which case they can support the Amendment without any qualms of conscience.

Mr John Hall: I think that everyone in the House would agree with the concluding remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) that the primary consideration that the House has to bear in mind is to ensure conditions and regulations under this Bill are best designed to assure the safety of human life. I agree that that must be the overriding consideration. The hon. Gentleman should not assume that because some hon. Members on both sides of the House differ from his point of view we have not read the evidence of the Committee or heard

the arguments already deployed on both sides. I can assure him that those who have taken part in this debate at least have some understanding of the problems that are involved.
I am very sorry that the Minister changed his mind. I think that he was seduced by the charming personality and eloquence of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and was probably overwhelmed by the fiery and statistical evidence submitted by my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris). Curiously enough, although his Amendment is designed to relieve some of the local authorities of some responsibility and additional work, it has not been welcomed with the overwhelming sense of gratitude which one would have expected.
There has been much protest against this Amendment being passed. In my own constituency, the Borough of High Wycombe, which is not a fire authority, is anxious and perturbed about the proposals to carry this Amendment because it thinks that it will add very considerably to the costs involved without increased efficiency of the service now provided. High Wycombe has a very special interest in fire risks. It has a large number of furniture factories which provide a very special fire risk indeed and yet over the last ten years or so, when the responsibility for certifying factories for means of fire escape and so on has been in the hands of the borough council there has been no loss of life in any of the fires. In recent months there have been two or three very serious fires indeed in furniture factories in High Wycombe. The main reason I understand for suggesting this change is that it is logical for the fire authority to be the authority that both certifies and inspects premises for fire risks and fire escapes.
I accept the fact that it seems logical, but if we always passed legislation in this House only on the basis of logic the amount of legislation would be halved. That we do not always work in this country on the basis of sheer logic must be apparent to hon. Members on both sides of the House. When something is working very well, I find it hard to find any good reason for disturbing it.

Mr Reader Harris: It is not working well.

7.30 p.m.

Mr Hall: My hon. Friend says that it is not working well, and during the course of his speech he gave examples where it was not working well. But neither the Minister—who was very lukewarm in his commendation of the Amendment nor the hon. Member for Rossendale, who spoke for the Opposition, in any way criticised district authorities for any lack of attention to or efficiency in their duties. Indeed, I should have thought that if there had been any laxity in the implementation of Section 34 of the 1937 Act, it was due mainly to the weakness of that Act rather than to any lack of attention by the district authorities.

Mr C. Howell: The hon. Member has just said that he had a number of fires in furniture factories in his area. How can he reconcile that fact with his statement that the present system is working well? If the Clause had been in operation there would probably have been no fires, and it is probably only through luck that there were no fatalities.

Mr Hall: That shows the danger of drawing conclusions without knowing the facts. If the hon. Member likes to make inquiries he can satisfy himself that the safeguards imposed against fire in the factories of Wycombe were the best that could possibly be taken. There was, I am sure, full consultation with the fire authorities in the district of High Wycombe and in surrounding districts. Everything that could have been expected to be done was done. I do not believe that anything was left undone which could have led to the fires which took place.
There is a special risk in the making of furniture. A good deal of wood has to be used, and also a number of inflammable liquids, for which local authorities have to issue licences. It is part of the fire risk, and the responsibility for issuing licences in these cases still rests with local authorities. I do not think that anyone can blame the High Wycombe authorities for the fires which took place there. In High Wycombe the present system works well, as it no doubt does in other parts of the country. The chief health officer, in conjunction with the architects, factory inspectors and the borough surveyor is able to give all the advice necessary to ensure that the necessary safeguards are included in any new factory buildings, or put into existing

buildings, and that is done with probably the same amount of efficiency as would be displayed by individual fire officers, even although it may be done by people without their specialised training and knowledge.
If we make this change additional copies of plans of new buildings, and perhaps even existing buildings, will probably have to be provided to fire authorities, over and above those which are already provided for local planning authorities. That will place an additional burden upon the fire department. But that is only part of the work, and possibly not the most important part. The really important part is the follow-up, and the continued inspection thereafter. Fire officers will have to inspect the premises, and that will mean a considerable addition to the strength of the fire departments of local authorities.
That may be welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth, but it will mean that additional cost will have to be borne by the fire authorities, which are usually the county authorities, and that cost will eventually percolate down to individual local authorities. They will say, " We have been doing this job efficiently for a number of years. No one except the fire officers have criticised us. It has not been stated that we have been inefficient. No official statement of inefficiency has been made of any district authority."

Mr Reader Harris: In an election year, my hon. Friend surely does not expect the Government or the Opposition to attack district councils and say that they have not done their job—I am joking about the election, of course—but we back benchers can tell the truth.

Mr Hall: I am astonished at that intervention. Do I understand my lion. Friend to mean that the Minister can make a statement which he does not believe to be true, on a matter of grave importance which has to do with human life, merely in order to curry favour with local authorities? I do not accept that. My opinion of the Minister is too high, and I do not think that he would say such a thing if he believed that local authorities had not done their job properly.
Further, even if the Minister were not prepared to say so, no such inhibition prevents the Opposition from saying it. No such inhibition prevents the hon. Member for Rossendale from saying that he thinks district authorities are not able to do their job efficiently. There has been no official statement of that kind. Therefore, district authorities will say, " If we have been doing our job well and efficiently, and there is no evidence against us, why, for the sheer sake of logic "—as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) said—" and for the sake of the administrative convenience of bringing things under one general administrative heading, should we change the situation now, when all that will happen is that the problems of consultation will be doubled, and there will be an increasing amount of paper work in various offices, which will make additional difficulties and add to the cost, which we will have to bear in the end?"
I hope that the Minister will consider this matter again. I commend the suggestion advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black). It is an excellent one, and would probably meet the case which everybody has in mind without causing the disruption and dissension which the Amendment would create.

Dr. Stross: At the beginning of his speech the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) referred to the seduction of my hon. Friend by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris). The hon. Member says that he has looked through the OFFICIAL REPORT of our discussions in Committee. That being so, I am sorry that he did not quote the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who expressed himself strongly on this point, in an interjection he made during the speech of the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth, who had just said:
The crux of the matter is that we cannot have the same man inspecting for nuisances and drains, and also looking for things that make for good fire prevention.
When the hon. Member said that, his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster immediately interrupted, and said something which is absolutely correct, although it was said, as always, in the

hon. Member's very forthright manner. The hon. Member said:
We could have the same man, were he a competent and expert person in fire prevention and escape and in the matter of drains, but do we think that Little Piddlecombe-onthe-Marsh District Council, which happens to have a large factory in its area, will have a staff competent to advise on the prevention of fires as well as upon drains? 
However brusquely that was put, it is the crux of the matter. In no way did any hon. Member wish to denigrate the smaller authorities. Indeed, in Committee we had sitting with us hon. Members who represent district councils, but not one person spoke in favour of the Bill as originally drafted. Everyone who spoke was in favour of the Amendment, the principle of which is contained in the Amendment now proposed by the Government.
We are very grateful to the Government for putting it forward. When we were discussing the matter in Committee we had in mind the best way of bringing about an improvement so that we should never again risk having a catastrophe such as we had in Keighley, when eight people choked or suffocated in carbon monoxide gas because the district council failed in its duties. We must say that, because there has been a report of the fire and that is what the report said. This does not mean that we attack district councils generally; it simply means that a district council failed in its duty on this one occasion, and nobody would deny it.
In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale said:
It would appear, and I think that it would be difficult to controvert this, that both the municipal authority at Keighley and the factory inspector failed in their duties in respect of the mill where that disastrous fire occurred." — [OFFiciA[. REPORT, Standing Committee B.3rd February, 1959; c. 237–44.]
We ought to be frank with each other. Members who served on the Committee should be exonerated by those who did not serve on it of having had in mind anything that would insult or strike a note of censure against the smaller authorities. Facts are facts and we must face them. If we have further loss of life and property as the result of inaction or improper or insufficient action by us, we shall not have done our duty.
The Parliamentary Secretary made a very strong speech in the first place,


rejecting our Amendment. He gave reasons why, and they were very similar to those which we have now heard in the House. After nearly two hours' discussion, we again heard from the Parliamentary Secretary. I have quoted the hon. Gentleman very often. What he then said was a pattern for all of us now and in the future, showing that when arguments are listened to with care a Minister can change his mind. The hon. Gentleman said:
I acknowledge frankly and sincerely that the whole weight of argument has gone against my case. Therefore, if the Committee would permit the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Amendment, on the clear understanding that my right hon. Friend and I accept the whole principle that has been argued today…" — [OFFICIAL REPORT, Stand-in. Committee B,3rd February, 1959; col. 268.]
That sort of thing does not happen out of the blue. That unusual statement happened because the Parliamentary Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman felt: that a true bill had been made out for the action that is now being taken by the Government themselves. We are grateful to them for doing the right thing, buy: it is understandable that hon. Members who did not hear the arguments in Committee should say, " Need you do this? Could you not have done it another way, as by arranging for consultation?"
The hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth gave the answer earlier in the debate. It is not only because of inspection, which is possibly the least important part of the process, but of regular inspection. We made it clear that there should be consultation with the factory inspector throughout. He shall always know what is being, done. We said to ourselves that, as the result of the most terrible tragedy of our lives, we knew that there was nobody so knowledgeable about fire prevention as the special officers in this country, and perhaps in Germany, a country which suffered much more than we—perhaps rightly—and that we wished to make fuller use of them.
We have to do this. Everyone agreed upon it in Committee. Let no one think that we are being censorious, but facts are facts and the truth must be faced. The truth is that the old way is not good enough.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I have listened with great care to the debate and have read with great care the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate in the Committee, on which I did not have the honour to serve. Like the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) I cannot find any compelling reason for the transfer of authority in this case.
I will go further. I feel that the Amendment is not achieving what Members on both sides of the House and on both sides of the dispute, so to speak, want to achieve. Those who support the Amendment and those who oppose it want to bring in the expert, to give the fire prevention officer full power to exercise the duty of telling the local authority whether the fire escape precautions are adequate.
There is no guarantee that if we transfer this duty from the district councils to the county councils we shall achieve that object. It is true that county councils are the fire authorities, but I am not satisfied that they will adopt any better practice than the practice of many district councils at the present time. I have been informed by the borough in my constituency of the procedure which it adopts, and which seems admirable. The building inspector goes to look at a factory taking with him the fire prevention officer.

Mr. Robens: Which fire prevention officer?

Mr Page: Of the fire authority.

Mr. Robens: Not of the district council?

Mr. Page: No, not of the district council. It has not got one. It takes the fire prevention officer of the fire authority, and the building inspector includes in his report the views and the report of the fire prevention officer.

Mr. Robens: I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman unduly, because the case for the district council should be put. While the district council in which the hon. Gentleman is interested takes along the fire prevention officer of the county council or of the borough council, I must point out that there is nothing in law to say that that shall be done. It is possible, is it not, that the district council might not invite the fire


prevention officer, in which case we lose the benefit and the advantage of the technique and the knowledge of the fire prevention officer in a matter which concerns the safety of many workers in case of fire.

Mr. Page: The right hon. Gentleman is running ahead of me and making my argument for me. I was saying that this was the best practice, and that if it were made compulsory we should be more certain of bringing the fire prevention officer, the expert, on to the scene than by a mere transfer of function to the county council. The Amendment does not seem to go far enough to satisfy those who oppose it and those who support it. If the good practice of some district councils were made compulsory on those who have failed to adopt it, we should achieve what we desire.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) spoke just now about the failure of the London County Council to certify more than 21 per cent. of the buildings after a certain period. That shows that even county councils are not free from the sort of suspicion which was thrown by my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris) on the district councils.
I accept that many district councils have not failed, but have not been able to carry out their duties because they have not adopted the right practice. If we made the best practice compulsory they would take into consultation and receive the report of the fire prevention officer, and would embody that in their certification, and we could achieve what both sides of the House want.

Mr. Ede: It is with the utmost regret that I have to support the Government on this occasion. I am further put into embarrassment in that I very rarely like to support both Front Benches when they agree with one another. As the author of the Fire Services Act, 1947, my past has caught up with me and has landed me in the deplorable position which I have just explained.
I have no doubt that the Borough of High Wycombe has a most competent set of officers. I am related to one of them. I have no doubt that the Municipal Borough of Crosby likes to walk hand in hand with the Lancashire County Council, even under its present régime.

It will do Crosby good. But High Wycombe and Crosby, and even Wimbledon, of which I happen to be an honorary Freeman, are not a fair example of the people who have these powers at the present time. There are far too many county district councils whose full-time officers are not competent to discharge this duty and there are some which have only part-time officers. The Local Government Act we passed last year may have some effect on that position, but it has not come into operation yet.
Factories are now growing up, and will continue to grow up, in areas which were not regarded as industrial areas before the end of the Second World War. Those are the places where it is necessary to have a person competent to deal with this important question of fire prevention as the result of his experience and training. I was glad to hear what the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) told us about the practice in his constituency, but I wonder, if, in High Wycombe, the Buckinghamshire County Council suggested that its fire prevention officer should go round with the health inspector, or the other person who may discharge this function, what response that County Council would get when I recollect the attitude of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) on the Bucks Water Board Bill only a few weeks ago.

Mr. John Hall: My attitude was adopted towards the Bucks Water Board rather than to Buckinghamshire County Council.

Mr. Ede: It does not matter, but Buckinghamshire County Council was on one side and the hon. Member on the other.
Let us realise that since the creation of the large fire authorities the competence of individual officers in the fire service who are charged with particular duties has very considerably increased. Also, modern factories continually present new problems in regard to fire prevention which require special consideration as industry develops along new lines. The creation of a large amount of dust in some new industries presents a particular problem, especially with the possibility of explosion at an early stage of a fire.
I do not claim to be competent to discuss technicalities. All I know is that in the year before I went to my secondary


school there was a fire in an adjoining urban district, which was then a local health board area. The art master of the school was the engineer of the fire brigade. The bell tolled and he left the class of boys, who followed him, and ran tour miles to the fire. That was at Cherkley Court, which was saved and is now the residence of Lord Beaverbrook. I wonder whether it was worth saving.
There is an entirely different situation today. Up to the outbreak of the Second World War, we still had same fire services organised on the basis I have described. No one would be willing to go back to that now. Logic is a very dangerous Ming in human affairs. The logic of this Proposal is that other services to which tie hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir T. Black) alluded are also to be allocated to the appropriate department.
I know the problem which confronts the Minister of Labour in this Bill. In some respects it is a rag-bag of a Bill, dealing with all sorts of problems. It deals with fire and with health; it might be with highways, and so on. On such occasions as this we ought to have the advantage of these proposals being at least spoken to, if not defended, by the Minister for the department brought into the discussion by the mere fact that we have this diversity and overlapping.
I hope that the Government will stand by what they have done. It may not be complete logic but, after all, the other things can be dealt with at appropriate times, when there is a Bill dealing on a wide basis with that particular branch of the public services. No one will deny that all the urban districts and all the rural districts in the country are not as competent as those for whom speeches have been made tonight and they will retain the powers which at present they ate quite incompetent to use unless this Amendment is made to the Bill.
It is noticeable that in these matters there is always a great deal of talk about local authorities as if county councils were not local authorities. The hon. Member for Wimbledon is, for a few more days, Chairman of Surrey County Council. He now sees the shades of night falling upon him in that capacity and is trying, like the man who was asked to make out his bill, to write it down quickly. He is making his peace beforehand with those

to whom he will now descend as an alderman of the Borough of Wimbledon.
Let us face it; we could not contemplate giving fire powers to the minor county district councils of whom I have been speaking tonight. Here is a matter in which the fire officer's technical assistance is of the utmost importance. We must, therefore, enable the authority which is the fire authority to handle these matters.

Mr. D. Jones: As I listened to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) describing the Fire Services Act, 1947, I could not help thinking it has taken me twelve years to discover one of the reasons why he decided at that time to hand the fire services over to county councils and county borough councils. Apparently it was because the art master in his school was the fire chief of a district council.

Mr Ede: No, he was not the fire chief.

Mr. Jones: I claim some small connection with that Bill. When my right hon. Friend introduced it he sought to make county councils the exclusive fire authorities. I and some hon. Friends persuaded him eventually to agree to representation on the county fire committees of county districts within those counties. We are faced tonight with the difficulty with which we are always faced when it is a question of adding powers to or taking powers away from what are loosely described in legislation as "district councils ". Unfortunately, in most legislation dealing with local authorities we confirm the powers by designation rather than by size. That is one of the problems with which we are faced and with which my right hon. Friend was faced in 1947 when he sought to reorganise the fire service.
8.0 p.m.
How can a district council, or even a borough, with a population of 10,000 or 15,00—there are many such boroughs and urban districts—provide the necessary finance to have fully qualified fire officers to do this job? However well intentioned the officer charged with doing the job in the smaller district councils may be, he cannot possibly be an expert in all the jobs which he is asked to undertake. Industrialists never ask in advance what is the size of a local authority before building their factories.


The result is that some of the biggest factories are in rural districts and small urban districts where it is impossible for the district council to have the staff available to carry out the work which it is called upon to do. The Act of 1937 calls upon the district council concerned to undertake the duty but does not lay down provisions to ascertain whether it has the financial capacity to do the job. The problem with which we are faced tonight is whether in these modern days the highly skilled and highly trained fire prevention officers serving in the fire services should be used to do the job.
I am concerned about one small matter to which the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister may reply. There seems to me to be no problem in connection with existing factories. The fire prevention officer can do the job. But we are not at the end of the road, I hope, in building new factories. New factories will be built in large or small local authority areas. The local authority is the authority which has to approve plans for the building of a factory. Is there to be any form of statutory consultation between the fire prevention officer and the planning authority in passing plans for a new factory so as to ensure that when a factory is built it has the most up-to-date means of exit in the event of a fire? It seems to me to be unfair that there should not be some form of statutory consultation between the fire prevention officer, who is skilled in the matter of determining up-to-date and modern methods of fire escape, and the planning authority.
If I may digress for a moment, the boundary of two local authorities passes right across the centre of a trading estate in the County of Durham. A factory has been built on that trading estate which is part in one local authority area and part in the other. The two fire prevention officers for the neighboring authorities were consulted. One wanted toughened glass fitted in the lower windows and the other wanted ordinary glass. The official who spoke to me about it said that it was a toss of the coin whether plain or toughened glass was put in. This is an example to show that fire prevention officers do not always agree one with the other.
I support the transfer of this power to fire prevention officers because the most important factor is the saving of human

life, irrespective of whether we take powers from fire authorities or from district councils. What we want to achieve is the most efficient and up-to-date method of saving life in the unfortunate event of fire. It would be unfair to impose undue burdens upon industrialists building factories if the factory is planned and the plans are approved by the local authority only to find that the fire prevention officer is not satisfied with the exits.
I ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at this matter to see whether in another place provision can be made for statutory consultation between local authorities and fire prevention officers in considering new plans for factories so that the fire prevention officer can make in advance of the factory being built any demands which he desires to make upon the local authority and thereby avoid unnecessary costs.

Mr. Martin Lindsay: My local authority, the Solihull Borough Council, takes an extremely poor view of this proposal, and it seems to me that a devastating case can be made against it. It appears to me that the Ministry has not considered the administrative difficulties which are involved. For example, district councils have a function similar to that under Section 34 of the Factories Act, 1937, in respect of flats, tenements, shops and institutions which are more than two storeys high. If any change is proposed, these two matters should be looked at together.
Again, building plans at present come to the notice of the district council because of the byelaws. It therefore seems to me that those whose statutory duty it is to consider plans for future building are in a much better position to judge what safety considerations are involved. The structure of a factory has a bearing on the requirements as to the means of escape. Building plans are very much better looked at by qualified surveyors than fire officers who may misinterpret them and make recommendations which are in conflict with sound building requirements.
Also, presumably there would have to be a duplication of building plans and administrative arrangements if a county council has to be brought in, and no thought appears to have been given to


the situation which may arise if plans are passed by the byelaw authority but rejected by the fire authority. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to deal with this point when he replies. I should like to know how such a situation would he resolved.
Another point which I do not think has been considered is that if this proposal is passed there will be no less than three authorities with a direct function. These would he the fire authority, the district council— as respects other parts of the Act relating to workers' health and welfare and those responsible for the enforcement of the greater part of the Factories Act, the factory inspectors. I should have thought that this form of divided control would be extremely detrimental to the proper enforcement of the Act as a whole.
This is a major change of policy which should not be gaily entered into by the Ministry without proper consultation with local authorities which have asked to see the Minister in order to put forward their views. Yet, we are going forward with the proposal without such consultations having taken place.
I am informed that local authorities are not taking a dog in the manger attitude, and their attitude is quite reasonable. They do not say that fire prevention officers have nothing whatever to contribute to the examination of means of escape. On the contrary, they believe that they should be associated with the district councils in carrying out what should remain a district council function.
The Bill in its present form permits district councils, if they wish, to approach the fire authority with the object of having the certifying work done by one of the authority's officers. If the district councils do not wish to pass the work entirely over to the fire authority, they could, by administrative arrangement, get all the advice they want from the fire prevention officer.
I should have thought that, if my right hon. Friend feels that some Amendment is necessary, then the type of Amendment which would be entirely satisfactory would be one whereby district councils, while remaining the certifying authorities, would be obliged to consult fire authorities before granting certificates. I hope that we shall have a satisfactory reply covering all these points, which do raise

a matter of great concern to the local authorities.

Mr. J. A. Sparks: With all due respect to the Minister of Labour, this is really a matter on which the House would have been well advised to have the Minister of Housing and Local Government present. We must remember, in connection with this proposal, that the purposes and functions of local authorities throughout the country are now the subject of examination, and Commissions have been set up to examine in detail whether or not there is evidence or ground for a complete reorganization of local government functions. It is suggested now that another responsibility should be transferred from the district councils to the county councils. We must remember that, in the post-war years, an immense amount of responsibility has been transferred from the district councils to the county councils, and in some cases the county councils are literally staggering under the heavy load of responsibility which is being placed upon them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has a county council complex. He thinks that the county councils are the be-all and end-all of perfection.

Mr Ede: No; they are only human.

Mr. Sparks: It is proposed by this Amendment to take away certain duties from county district councils and transfer them to county councils whose resources in population and finance are far below the level of many of the district councils from which the functions are to be taken.

Mr Ede: No.

Mr. Sparks: My right hon. Friend knows as well as I do that his strictures against district councils will apply also to some county councils. Some county councils, in my opinion, are not quite as competent to take this responsibility as others.

Mr. Ede: Even though the area of a small county council may not be great in rateable value or in population, it is still greater in rateable value and population than any constituent district within its own borders.

Mr. Sparks: That may be an excuse that my right hon. Friend puts up, but I would not necessarily say that it follows,


therefore, that the county council is more competent to take this responsibility.
We must approach the problem in a commonsense sort of way. The basis is really consultation between county councils and county district councils. It is quite wrong to make a line of demarcation and say that all county district councils are out and the county councils shall have the responsibility. That is why I say, in view of all the complications involved and having regard to the whole question of local government functions and purposes, this is really a matter which ought to be deferred and coupled with the examination now being undertaken throughout the country into the functions of local authorities, whether they be county councils, district councils or anything else.
8.15 p.m.
I should not for a moment accept that the borough council in my constituency is incompetent to fulfill this responsibility and only the Middlesex County Council can really do the job. As a matter of fact, there is the closest co-operation between the two bodies in all matters. I represent a highly industrialized constituency, and I resent very much the implication that my borough council is not competent to carry out this responsibility in regard to the many factories in its area. It has done the job exceptionally well, and the Middlesex County Council will not improve upon what has already been done by the borough council.
We must recognise that there are exceptions to what may be regarded as the general rule. I readily admit that there are some county district councils which are not really competent to shoulder the responsibility. But there are many which are perfectly competent to do so, which have done so and which can continue to do so. Why take powers away from hands which are perfectly satisfactorily doing the job and put them into the hands of the higher authority, the county council?
As I have said before, we are inclined far too much to transfer powers and responsibilities from county district councils to county councils. So much of it has been done that county councils in many cases, so I am coming to believe, are not able competently and effectively to discharge all the varied duties which we are placing upon them year after year. We are now facing a situation where we

have to consider whether we ought to take away from the county councils certain powers and give them back to the county district councils or, whether, where the county councils remain the responsible authorities, they should delegate to the county district councils certain day-to-day work arising from particular functions or responsibilities.
Local government reorganization is very much in the melting-pot at present. This is a most inopportune moment to seek to make a transfer of functions. The whole subject is being reconsidered, and it is quite obvious that there will be a devolution of responsibility from county councils to county district councils in, perhaps, a whole range of other services.
Is this proposed transfer of responsibility to be the subject of consideration by the Local Government Commissions now sitting, or will it be outside their terms of reference? If it is to be outside, I should regard that as quite wrong. I hope that the Minister will say that this function he now proposes to transfer to the county councils will be considered by the Local Government Commissions which are now working. They ought to have the right and duty to consider this matter in relation to the many other functions of local government and, in due time, make a recommendation to the House of Commons about what should be done.
The proposal is premature. As I said at the beginning, on an important matter like this, the Minister of Housing and Local Government ought to have been here to listen to the debate, contribute to it, and advise the House about how this proposal fits into the general picture of local government reorganisation which is now taking place.

Mr Robens: I rise only because of the speeches to which we have just listened, particularly that of my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks). I speak also as a local authority man—in a borough council, not a district council—and I can well understand the feelings which are aroused if duties are taken from a local authority and transferred elsewhere. I can appreciate the feelings of those who are engaged in the administration of district councils when they fear that some of the duties for which they have been responsible, and which


they may feel they have carried out very efficiently, are to be taken from them. I have no quarrel with the speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton and other hon. Members who have been defining the position of the district council.
May I put my own position and. I think that of the majority of my hon. and right hon. Friends, and certainly their unanimous decision in Standing Committee? We are not concerned with the rivalries between district councils and other local authorities. We are concerned with the safety, in relation to fire hazards, of the 7; or 8 million workpeople who work in factories. I care that the Bill is before us because at Keighley a fire broke cut and one-fifth of the workers in the mill perished because of the failure of the fire authorities.

Mr Sparks: Are all the good district councils therefore to be deprived of this power?

Mr Robes: I am not interested in the rivalries of clerks to councils or rivalries over the powers of local authorities. We are not here considering whether one can pick out good district councils or not. We are here making the law of the country.

Mr Nippon: rose—

Mr. Robens: If I am allowed to complete one or two sentences before being interrupted, I will give way.
I am not concerned with whether some district councils are more efficient than others. I am not concerned that some district councils co-operate extremely well with fire authorities. We are not dealing with the administrative angles of this subject at all. When we are dealing with the law in a Factories Bill, then, on behalf of 7 to 8 million workers in factories whose lives are at hazard, the only people in whom I am prepared to put my trust in relation to the whole question of fire hazard in a factory are the fire prevention officers.
This point has been indicated and enumerated at great length by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). Fire prevention officers are experts; there is not the slightest doubt that since 1940 fire fighting has become an expert job. The responsibility for

deciding the safe means of exit in case of fire must be in the hands of an expert, and the expert must be the fire prevention officer.
I do not think that because a number of district councils are efficient and work well with the fire prevention authorities, that makes good law. It does not. Let us put the onus where it really belongs. We have efficient and well-trained fire prevention officers. We have a well-organised fire prevention system. There are schools at which these officers get special training. To ask a district council which is not a fire prevention authority to have authority under the law because it does not want to lose a little bit of power here and there is nonsense.
I hope that the Minister will say that because some district councils are responsible for looking at the plans of buildings there will be consultations, but I want the responsibility of the law put on the fire prevention authority. I want the consultation to come from it to the district council.

Mr Rippon: The right hon. Gentleman offered to give way to me.
The right hon. Gentleman said that we are concerned with the law and not with administration. Would he address himself to the argument I put forward, and also the argument put forward by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones)? While we agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has to say about the fire prevention authority being the authority that has logically to do the job under Section 34 of the Factories Act, 1937, there ought nevertheless to be a reconsideration of the point that there is a conflict between the district council as the authority under the byelaws of the Public Health Act, 1936, and the duties of the fire prevention authority. We might explore the possibility of drafting an Amendment which provides for consultation between the two authorities.

Mr Robens: This conflict does not arise. I am concerned about the millions of workers in factories. I do not want a district council which is not a firefighting prevention authority to have anything to do with it. District councils have responsibilities in other directions in relation to buildings, and I hope that common sense will prevail. I hope we have not reached the stage when the rivalry between a district council and the


county council is so great that they are not speaking to each other. I hope common sense will prevail in local government and the necessity for having a fire prevention officer will be realised. The fire prevention authority is the authority on whom responsibility should be placed under this Bill. That is a matter of sensible local government administration.

Sir C. Black: If the right hon. Gentleman is right that district council authorities are so unsuitable for this purpose and fire authorities should undertake this duty and there is a great risk in leaving things as they are, surely the logic of his argument must be that it is criminal to leave the question of dealing with blocks of tenements and other classes of buildings with district council authorities while dealing specially and separately with factories.

Mr. Robens: We must confine ourselves to the matters which are before the House, and they are the matters in relation to workers in factories. Fire prevention arrangements in factories require an approach very different from the approach to fire prevention in blocks of tenements. At this stage we are not dealing with tenement properties but with the Factories Acts. It is the only point upon which we must concentrate our attention.
In defense of the Standing Committee's decision and of the Government's Amendment, all I say is that the Government have chosen to select the fire prevention authority for the purposes of the Factories Acts. That commands my support, and it commanded the support of the whole Committee. It should command the support of any sensible person who is not pursuing a vested interest on behalf of district councils. I do not say that the Bill would not have emerged at all, but probably it would not have emerged as quickly if there had not been the disastrous Keighley fire. I do not want to worry or burden the House with extracts from the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1956, but I commend it to hon. and right hon. Members. I do not believe that there is an hon. Member present who could read Chapter 7 of that Report and afterwards suggest that anybody but the fire authority should be responsible for dealing with this matter under the Bill.
8.30 p.m.
Those who are specially instructed, those who are living with the increase in new techniques in industry, which are proving great fire hazards as each month goes by, are the people upon whom the House should rely for advice. I should hope that, from an administrative point of view, the district councils and the fire prevention authorities would consult on matters where their duties overlap. That is common sense.
I hope, therefore, that the House will not look at the Amendment in the light of a rivalry between different types of local authority but will realise that we are dealing, under the Factories Acts, with the safety of 7 million to 8 million workpeople in relation to fire and that the Standing Committee, which is grateful to the Government for the Amendments that they have tabled, decided, after long consultation and discussion of all these arguments, that if we were to look after the interests of those work-people the experienced technical staffs of the fire prevention authorities should be made responsible. I hope that the Minister will say that he stands by the Amendment but that he will accept that there should be consultation between district councils and the fire prevention authorities where there is an overlapping of their duties.

Mr. Wood: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer briefly now one or two points made in the course of this interesting debate. It is certain that we should not be having this discussion had it not been for the Fire Services Act, 1947, as the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has mentioned. It was, therefore. a great pleasure to have the author of that Act present and to hear what the right hon. Gentleman said. I sympathies very deeply with him in the difficulty in which he finds himself by reason of being in agreement with both Front Benches. I hope that the rarity of that occurrence will give him a little peace and that it will not disturb him too much.
Probably the most important point raised in the debate is the one which the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) has mentioned and which has been touched upon by several of my hon. Friends and particularly by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones). That point is the conflict of


authority which is likely to exist under the arrangements that the Government now suggest. Put very simply, the means of escape which is part of the structure will be the responsibility of the fire prevention authority—the county councils and the county borough councils, while the structure as a whole, and the building byelaws which the district councils make and administer, will be the responsibility of the district councils.
I was much impressed by what my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) said, and it is quite clear that some means must be found to overcome that difficulty. I do not know exactly what that means will be, but I will give an undertaking that we shall try to find some way of dealing with a problem which has been mentioned in all parts of the House today. If necessary, we shall table an Amendment when the Bill goes to another place.
The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) and others made us dwell for some time on the fact, with which a great many of us agree, of the high efficiency of the district councils. I was pleased to see that both the hon. Gentleman and h s right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth agreed with that proposition. Certainly, no part of the Government's case in putting down these Amendments can be rested on the alleged inefficiency of the district councils. It would be quite impossible to make such a case, and, as I tired to suggest when I first spoke, there are some district councils whose record is quite extraordinarily good. Therefore, there is no attempt at all to rest our case on an alleged inefficiency or falling down on the job. I will come to the case in a moment.
The hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) and one or two other hon. Gentlemen suggested that we should have had consultations with the associations concerned. I will be quite frank with the House. The position, which I stated at the beginning, was that originally we took one view. In Committee, however, I was impressed by the whole weight of the argument for the transfer of duties—and I may say that not a single voice was raised against the Amendment then suggested by the right hon. Gentleman—and, therefore, I

decided that it would be right to accept the principle of the Amendment which was then moved. Therefore, there could be no question of consultation between our decision, as stated in the Bill, and the reversal of that decision on which decided after having heard the argument in the Committee.

Mr. Sparks: The hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, realise that the Minister of Housing and Local Government has very close consultations with all the local authority organisations on a wide range of housing responsibilities, and that, while the hon. Gentleman may have every reason for not doing so, he will recognise that it is the usual thing to consult the local authority associations.

Mr. Wood: Certainly; I appreciate that, but all I am suggesting is that we were not guilty of any discourtesy in not consulting the associations because there was not time to consult them when this happened in the Committee. It would have been quite impossible to hold further consultations. Therefore, I ask the House to believe that we had no intention of being discourteous. We took one view and were then persuaded by the weight of argument to take another.
I think that it has been agreed in this discussion this evening that the arguments in this matter are well balanced. The hon. Member for Nelson and Caine (Mr. S. Silverman), who opposed these Amendments, agreed that there was, in fact, a fairly good balance between the arguments produced. He said that we should not take away functions unless we must. I suggest to the House that this principle which we are putting into effect in this Amendment follows as the logical consequence of the 1947 Fire Services Act. I hope that the case has been too well argued by the right hon. Member for Blyth to require any additional remarks from me.
A number of my hon. Friends have been worried about divided responsibility. It seems to me that this is one of the difficult situations in which, whatever answer one arrives at, one has a certain division of responsibility. As I have suggested, I should like to try to make that inevitable division of responsibility as little as possible by thinking, between now and the time when the Bill goes to another place, of ways in which we could make consultations between the county


boroughs and county councils, on the one hand, and the district councils, on the other, as full and effcct've as possible.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 5, line 23, leave out from first of " to " is " in line 24 and insert "the said section thirty-four".

In line 25, leave out " district "— [Mr. Wood.]

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 5, line 25, after "council ", to insert:
and, if regulations made by the Minister so require, the application is accompanied by such plans as may be prescribed by the regulations".
This Amendment is to give effect to the undertaking I gave in Committee in answer to one moved by the Opposition, which suggested that plans should be submitted with any application for a fire escape certificate. It is suggested in the Amendment, and I hope the House will agree that it is a good way to do it, that my right hon. Friend should have the power to make regulations specifying what kind of plans might be necessary. It is rather a complicated matter, because naturally the kind of plans necessary would probably vary from case to case, and so I hope the House will agree that it would be better to deal with this by regulations than to include it in the Bill.

Mr MacDermot: This is a point we raised as a result of certain representations made to us. We agree that the matter is best dealt with by regulations, but I hope that the Minister will make regulations under this Clause as soon as possible, because I gather that from an administrative point of view it will help a great deal in getting these matters dealt with speedily if there are proper plans submitted.
We have heard reference already today to certain figures given about the number of these certificates which have been issued by the London County Council which, of course, has an exceptional problem to contend with. I believe that one of the reasons why that figure is not higher is that it has not got proper plans, and I do not think it has the power to call for them. This has made it a much slower matter for the L.C.C. to deal with applications than would otherwise be the case. So we welcome the Amendment and hope that action will rapidly be taken under it.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 5, line 29, leave out " district ".— [Mr. Wood.]

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 5, line 35, at the end to insert:
(3) The council shall inform the inspector for the district in any case in which the certificate has been, or is deemed to have been, refused.
This Amendment is to give effect to an undertaking we gave in Committee that where the council had refused to grant a certificate, the inspector should be told. That was the general wish cf the Committee, and I think it will be the general wish of the House, because it is essential that the inspector in such cases should know that refusal had been made so that he could take the necessary action.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. MaeDermot: I beg to move, in page 5, line 35, at the end to insert:
(3) The provisions of subsection (5) of the said section thirty-four (which requires the occupier to give notice in writing to the council of certain proposals relating to factory premises) may be extended by the Minister by regulations to proposals to make such structural alterations or extensions or such increases in the number of persons employed or such changes or increases in the use of the factory as the Minister may by such regulations prescribe.
To explain this Amendment I must refer briefly to Section 34 (5) of the principal Act of 1937. That is the Section providing for certification by, as it will now be, the county district authorities of the means of escape in factories. Subsection (5) of the principal Act provides
If, after the grant of a certificate, it is proposed to make any material extension or material structural alteration of the factory premises or to increase materially the number of persons employed in the factory or in any part specified in the certificate, or to begin to store or use explosive or highly inflammable material in the factory or materially to increase the extent of such storage or use — 
Then the occupier has to give notice in writing to the council of the proposal, the point obviously being that if changes of this kind are being made the council should be in a position to reconsider whether or not the means of escape will still be satisfactory after those alterations or chancres have been made.
8.45 p.m.
The wording of the subsection is imprecise and vague. That is why I read


it at some length. We have been advised that it would help greatly in the enforcement of this provision if some more precise direction were given as to what are circumstances which require notice to be given to the council. The words " material alterations " are not satisfactory because it is difficult for the occupier to know whether from the point of view of fire prevention the alteration which he has in mind is material. It may be quite a minor change structurally, but from the point of view of fire prevention it may have far-reaching consequences. He cannot tell, he does not send in his notice and nothing happens about it. Then a fire takes place with unfortunate consequences. He has committed an offence but, relatively speaking, he is innocent because he had not the necessary knowledge to appreciate that the alteration was material.
In Committee we put down an Amendment which was not called, because it was out of order, in which we tried to lay down in terms of percentages and figures precisely what sort of alterations or changes would be considered to be material for the purposes of the Section. On reconsideration we think that that would not be practicable. One could not lay down a rule which would apply to all kinds of factories as to what was or what was not material. Nevertheless, we think that if those who have experience Li these matters put their minds to it they will be able to define with more precision, in relation to particular classes of factories, particularly those where the fire risk is high, what sort of alterations would require this notice being given.
The object of the Amendment is to give the Minister power to prescribe by regulations what are the sort of alterations, extensions, or increases in numbers of persons employed which should require a notice to be given by the occupier under t is subsection.

Mr Wood: I am in some difficulty, because the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) has suggested that we should take power in the Bill to enable my right hon. Friend to do something which the hon. Member admitted that he himself found too difficult to do. I do not think that that is an unfair interpretation of his speech.
I have very carefully considered whether my right hon. Friend could give a more

accurate definition of material extension or material structural alteration or material increase, and I have come to the same conclusion as the hon. Gentleman — that it would be impossible to do it. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, a relatively small increase in the number of men or women employed in a multi-storey factory would be far more material than the same increase in a factory on the ground floor with plenty of doors and windows. Similarly, as he pointed out, in some cases a fairly small structural alteration such as putting wire on a window which led to a fire escape would obviously be a material alteration.
I do not see how my right hon. Friend could do this without writing into his regulations almost every conceivable thing that could possibly happen to any factory. I am sorry to give the hon. Gentleman a disappointing and rather weak-kneed answer, but I can only reach the same conclusion as that which he reached and suggest that this would be too much for my right hon. Friend to do. We must leave the interpretation of " material alterations " and " material increase " to those who will be responsible for administering the various Sections of the 1937 Act and the Bill.
One thing that is important in this connection, however, is that we are about to give — we shall be discussing it presently — the certifying authorities a greater right to come into the factories to inspect them than we gave them before. Therefore, possibly the point is a little less important than it was before, although had it been possible I should have been delighted to meet it.
I conclude, therefore, by saying that we have met the same difficulties as the hon. Member for Lewisham, North has clone and that we cannot attempt a definition in the Bill.

Mr. MarDermot: I am not in the slightest abashed by the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary that he is unable to do that which I have been unable to do or the fact that he uses my inability as an argument against the Amendment. In the short time that I have been in the House and attempting my hand at drafting, it has frequently been my experience that matters which I am quite unable to draft can be drafted with great skill by


the Government with the assistance which they have of those who are expert in these matters.
I must, however, take it, although the hon. Gentleman did not in terms say so, that those who advise him in this matter have shared the opinion which he has put forward that they would be unable effectively to draft regulations if this power were given. If that really is the situation, we must accept that professional advice. It would be wasting time to write into the Bill a power which the Minister would be unable to use.
I also agree with the comment by the Parliamentary Secretary that the matter will, perhaps, be somewhat less important if the House accepts, as 1 hope it will, the later Amendment which would give powers to the councils, which, presumably, would be exercised through their fire prevention officers, to visit factories from time to time to see whether changes of this kind have been made. If that is the feeling of the House on the matter, I would be happy to withdraw the Amendment and beg to ask leave so to do.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn

Amendment made: In page 5, line 37, leave out " district ". — [Mr. Wood.]

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 5, line 41, to leave out from the beginning to the end of line 46 and to insert:
for the purpose of ascertaining whether there has been a change of conditions by reason of which the existing means of escape have become insufficient".
The effect of the Amendment would be to delete paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (3) and to insert these proposed words. This is merely consequential on a decision taken by the Committee. Paragraph (a)would become redundant and these words would meet the point adequately now that the question of the intervals of not less than twelve months has been decided as it was upstairs.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 6, line 1, to leave out subsection (4) and to insert:
(4) Notwithstanding subsection (12) of the said section thirty-four (which requires examinations under that section to be carried out by officers of the council), where the council is not a fire authority within the

meaning of the Fire Services Act, 1947, or arrangements are in force for the carrying out of all or any of its functions under that Act by another fire authority, such an examination may, at the request of the council, be carried out by an officer of a fire brigade maintained by any such fire authority, if he is authorized in writing by the authority.
This Amendment is a little complicated. The purpose of the transfer which we have been discussing at some length this evening is to enable the county and county borough councils to use officers of the fire brigade in connection with the work of certifying fire escapes. The difficulty is that there are a few county and county borough councils which are not independent fire authorities. The only purpose of this rather complicated Amendment is to enable those few councils which are not independent fire authorities, if they so wish, to authorize an officer of the fire authority which covers their areas to carry out the examination of means of escape for them.

Mr Ede: It is true that this is a complicated matter, but it seems to me that the Government have made it even more complicated than it need be. Where a joint fire authority is brought into existence by the relinquishing to the joint fire authority of the fire power of two or more fire authorities, a new fire authority is created. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) mentioned two such authorities. There is that which covers the County of Kent and the County Borough of Canterbury, and he mentioned also the County of Worcester and the County Borough of Worcester; and there are some others.
It seems to me that the Government have been quite right and have had quite strong support in the House tonight in insisting that the fire authority is to be the authority under whose auspices the certificate is to be given. Curiously enough, having established the fire authority for that purpose for other cases, they are now proposing that when a joint fire authority has been formed the constituents of that fire authority shall now resume the power but employ, as I understand, for that purpose the officer of the joint fire authority.
I admit that, owing to the wording of the original Act, it is necessary that something should be done on this matter, but I should have thought that in the case


where an area is under a joint fire authority an officer of the joint fire authority should be the person to give this certificate. Personally, as one who believes that a good many fire authorities could with advantage be formed in the country, I do not want to see a joint fire authority being established and then being immediately split up again for this purpose.
My attention was not drawn to this until it was too late to draft an Amendment, and I frankly admit that the position is so complicated that it will need a skilled draftsman to do what I think ought to be done, but I want to establish the position whereby the fire authority for all fire matters shall be supreme, and I sincerely hope that when two or more authorities have agreed to form a joint fire authority they shall not be able to slip out of the fire authority through the discharge by someone or other of this important function. I think that all the arguments which were used in the previous debate in favour of the fire authority being the authority to issue the certificate should remain in the case of the joint fire authority.

9.0 p.m.

Mr Wood: I am very much relieved to find that even to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) this is complicated. I can assure him it is to me. It is possible that the best way in which I can help the House is not now to try to reply to the point the right hon. Gentleman has raised, but to look into the matter. If there is a more tidy and more efficient way of dealing with it, it will not be too late to adopt it.

Mr Reader Harris: I support what the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said. There are other joint authorities, and the great argument in support of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, even after the passing of this major Amendment giving county councils and county borough councils these powers because they are fire authorities, is that there is still no guarantee that in every case the fire department will exercise the means of escape certification duties. In the case of a joint fire authority where there may be two counties not themselves fire authorities but which form a joint authority which is a fire authority, Denbigh and

Monmouthshire are examples, there will be a greater tendency on the part of the architects' department or the drainage department to retain these certifying powers. There is thus a very strong argument for what the right hon. Gentleman has suggested.

Mr. Robens: I was interested in what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris). We do not want to have the position where two authorities which are not fire prevention authorities themselves are likely not to call in a fire prevention officer. The whole purpose of our previous discussion was that we did not want the admirable inspector of drains to deal with fire prevention. That was the point of our debate in Committee.
However, we can be satisfied that the Parliamentary Secretary is to give this matter consideration. The House generally wants what my right hon. Friend wants, that the fire prevention authority should be the body to undertake the inspection, with the local authority subsequently giving the necessary certificate. I think that we can rest content with the Parliamentary Secretary's assurance.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 6, line 15, at the end to insert:
(6) In subsection (13) of the said section thirty-four (which specifies the factories to which that section applies) there shall be added, after paragraph (d), the words " and the Minister may by regulations provide that this section shall also apply to any class or description of factory specified in the regulations".
The purpose of this Amendment is to enable my right hon. Friend, by regulation, to extend the classes of factories which are required to have certificates as to means of escape.

Mr. MacDermot: On a point of order. Would it not save time and be more convenient, if the Minister has no objection, if we also take the Amendment in page 6, line 15, at the end to insert:
(6) In the said section thirty-four the following shall be substituted for subsection (13) (which specifies the factories to which the section applies): —
(13) This section applies to every factory except a factory not exceeding twenty thousand square feet in floor area and comprising only one room at ground level",


which raises a similar matter? Such a discussion would save having two debates covering virtually the same ground.

Mr Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): That would be convenient.

Mr Wood: I am sorry that I did not suggest that. Clearly, it is convenient.
It was previously thought that under Section 35 (1) of the 1937 Act we had the power to make this extension, but it is now the expert advice that that subsection does not give us that power and that it is, therefore, necessary to have this Amendment. I hope that the House will agree to it, after we have heard the further thoughts of hon. Members opposite.

Mr MacDermot: I do not think that, as such, we would offer any objection to the Amendment which the Parliamentary Secretary has proposed. We would, however, like to hear his comments upon the Amendment in our names to which I have referred. It may be that such a sweeping change as we are proposing is not practicable at the present stage and if that is so, and he satisfies us on that, I think that my hon. Friends would be only too pleased to agree to the Amendment which the Parliamentary Secretary has proposed.
Section 34 (13) of the 1937 Act lays down the classes of factories to which that Section applies and for which a certificate is required. I shall not weary the House by reading the classes now. I think that the general feeling is that, as and when the administrative machinery is able to handle a greater number of factories, those classes should be extended. What our Amendment would do, if accepted, would be to extend the Section at once to virtually all factories, except very small one-room factories at ground level, and make them immediately subject to the provisions of Section 34.
It may be that that is something which is too drastic to do in one step. It is certainly the goal that we would like to see, because it is in many of these small factories that the greatest fire risk exists. The modern well-built and well-constructed factory, one hopes, will have proper and adequate fire precautions included in its design. It is small buildings, often old dwelling-houses, the base-

ments of which have perhaps been converted into workshops, which are the real fire traps, and we should like to see this provision extended to that class of factory. They are extremely numerous and there is no point in our passing laws which no one is able to enforce within any appreciable length of time. It may be that it is better to do it by stages through gradual extension of the regulations. That is all I have to say at this stage, but I think that the House would like to hear the comments of the Minister on this matter.

Mr. Wood: Perhaps it would be convenient if I immediately gave my comments. I think that the only issue between us is one of timing. I have suggested taking powers through my right hon. Friend for extending the scope of Section 34 of the 1937 Act, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) has suggested, rather tentatively, that the scope should be extended at once.
The main argument, which seems to me to be wholly convincing — I hope that the House will also be convinced — against doing this at once is that it is tremendously important that we should have 100 per cent. performance on the existing scope. As I said during the Committee stage, there are 60,000 factories which now come within scope and only 67 per cent. of them have certificates. Therefore, I think that it would be essential to get 100 per cent. performance on the existing factories that have to be certified before we extend the Section.
That is an argument, I would suggest, against the immediate extension which the hon. Gentleman has proposed. There is a further argument, which I think may have some importance, that we have taken the decision this evening to change the certifying authority. I think that it would be most convenient if the new system could be given time, as it were, to shake down before we begin extending the number and class of factories which the new certifying authority should have to certify.
I would, therefore, ask the House, if it so agrees, to accept my Amendment to give my right hon. Friend powers to extend the scope, if it might seem to him desirable to do so. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be willing, after what


I have said, not to move his Amendment on the grounds that it would be best to do the lob that we have to do first before undertaking the bigger one.

Mr. Robens: I think that we would accept what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, and my hon. Friend will probably decide to agree to the Government Amendment rather than seek support for his own. But when we bear in mind the fact that after twenty-two years only 67 per cent. of our factories have been inspected in accordance with the Act we realise that something must be wrong with our own administration. This is not a political matter, but one of administration. Is our failure to inspect more factories due to the fact that we really do not have enough inspectors, or is it that even at full establishment it has been physically impossible for them to carry out these inspections since the passing of the 1937 Act?
I would remind the House that the Section about which we are now talking concerns any factory in which more than 20 persons are employed. It also concerns factories which are being constructed or converted, and in this respect I would refer once again to what my hon. Friend said, namely, that it is the converted factory, or the house converted into a factory, which has the most frightening possibilities. This is the place with wooden stairs and wooden floors. It is the place where, if fire breaks out, the possibilities of loss of life are very great.
I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that it is no use putting into a Bill powers which provide that every factory
except a factory not exceeding twenty thousand square feet in floor area and comprising only one room at ground level
should be inspected if the job cannot be done, but before my hon. Friend decides whether he can agree to the Government Amendment I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us how quickly he thinks that the rest of the inspections can take place. I am sure that he does not take the view that a 67 per cent. inspection in twenty years is a sufficiently speedy rate for the years that follow. There must be some way of speeding up the process. Is not now the time to ask specially for the assistance of fire prevention authorities in tackling the job? We might then be able to get all these inspection; completed and turn to the

kind of Amendment which my hon. and learned Friend has put upon the Notice Paper.
This is a very serious matter. I suspect that it is in those factories which have not yet been inspected that the greatest tire hazards will be found. Although I appreciate the logic of the Parliamentary Secretary's argument that we must get on with this job before we begin to change the provisions of the Act to the kind suggested in my hon. Friend's Amendment, I think that the hon. Member should give us some assurance that the task will be pressed on with increasing urgency. If he could give an estimate of the time this process will take it would be helpful.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Wood: I am not in a position to give any precise information on this point and I do not entirely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about uninspected factories being a greater danger than the others. One would expect a certifying authority to look at the more dangerous factories first and to leave the comparatively safe ones till later.
The main burden of what the right hon. Gentleman said was to express anxiety about the 33 per cent, of factories within the scope of Section 34 which has not been inspected. At the present rate of progress, leaving out such occurrences as the last war, it will be, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, about another ten years before the present scope of Section 34 is completed. I know that my right hon. Friend is extremely anxious to use the powers which he has just been granted by the House, but he sees no point in doing so until the work is done.
I give an undertaking that we will take what steps we can — although the matter is obviously one for the fire authorities — to see that these inspections take place at a greater rate than in the past. We hope that it will not be long before we can do something on the lines that have been suggested, although I cannot say the precise direction in which we shall move.
I hope that the House will agree to leave the matter there. We have taken powers to extend it when we can, and we will press on to reach that point as soon as we can. We will also try to impress upon all concerned the urgency of the matter.

Mr. MacDermot: In view of the explanation and the assurance which the Parliamentary Secretary has given to us, I feel sure that we will accept what he has said and will wish to pass the Amendment. We shall then not move the second of the Amendments which we have been discussing.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 6, line 15, at the end to insert:
(7)In subsection (2) of one hundred and sixteen of the principal Act (which requires a copy of the certificate under the said section thirty-four to be attached to the general register) the words " a copy of " shall be omitted.
This is a very small Amendment to make the 1937 Act more consistent by making Section 116 say what Section 34 says.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 6, line 15, at end insert:
(8) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section shall affect any byelaw made before the coming into operation thereof. —[Mr. Wood.]

Clause 8. — (FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT.)

Mr Wood: I beg to move, in page 6, line 27, at the end to insert:
which shall be so placed as to be readily available for use".
This Amendment is to give effect to the undertaking about the siting of firefighting appliances. It was suggested that these appliances should be readily accessible. I think the Committee agreed that accessibility was not the only criterion, so I hope the suggestion we make that they should be readily available will meet the point.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 6, line 33, at the end, to insert:
(3) The Minister may make special regulations requiring means to be provided in any class or description of factory for notifying the fire brigade in case of fire and requiring employed persons to be made familiar with their use.

Mr Speaker: I think the Parliamentary Secretary might take with this Amendment the next one, in page 6, line 37, to leave out from " occupier " to " may " in line 38 and to insert:
(5) Any requirement imposed by regulations made under subsection (2) of this section".

Mr. Wood: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That will be very convenient. The first Amendment is the important one, and the second is purely drafting and is necessary because of the new subsection which the first Amendment proposes to introduce.
The first Amendment is to carry out the undertaking which I gave in the Committee to amend Clause 8 in order to give my right hon. Friend the power to require in regulations the provision of efficient means of communicating with the fire brigade, to specify in regulations what means he would require for this purpose, and to require that people employed in the factories should be familiar with the methods to be used.

Mr. MacDermot: We of course welcome these Amendments, which meet the point we raised and discussed at some length in Committee. Once again the Minister finds it necessary to take powers to do these things by regulations because they are too intricate and complicated to write into the Bill itself. The only comment I make is to express the hope once again that this is a matter which will be dealt with speedily and that the Minister, as soon as possible when the Bill becomes law, will issue regulations under this power. It is an unhappy feature of Factories Acts legislation that there are still many Sections in which powers have been taken to make regulations, but nothing whatever has been done under them. I hope this will not be another of them.

Mr. C. Howell: Obviously it is not possible to put a further Amendment at this stage, but I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to realise that it is possible on second thoughts to read into this Amendment something which one does not read into it the first time. When I first saw the Amendment I thought it was a question of checking up and making a notification of a fire after a fire had taken place where, for instance, the factory people had put out the fire and this was to indicate to the fire authority a possibility of fire occurring there. That is caused by the use of the word notifying ". We can say that we have notified the fire brigade in the case of a fire which we have put out and we are telling the


fire brigade so as to make sure there is not another far more serious fire.
When the Bill goes to another place the Minister might have another look at it and consider using the word " calling " so that the provision would read:
The Minister may make special regulations requiring means to be provided in any class or description of factory for calling the fire brigade in case of fire and requiring employed persons o be made familiar with their use.
It might be said that there is a legal use of the word " notifying ", but, being a simple soul, I think we notify things;inch as notifiable diseases, which are notified to medical officers of health. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to look at the drafting again.

Mr Wood: I shall certainly look at it. I cannot say that I think " calling " would be a great improvement on " notifying". The hon. Member said that he realised this only when he read it a second time. Perhaps that might be an argument for reading it only once. I think his suggestion for calling the fire brigade in case of fire might as easily be read, if one read that a second time, that where the fire had been put out the fire brigade might be called unnecessarily. I shall not argue the merits of the matter, but I shall look at it again.

Mr C. Howell: The Parliamentary Secretary will agree that we have this provision in lots of other cases. The police authorities have a red telephone which is used only for 999 calls. The Commissioner of Police could say that one calls the police by dialing 999, but that one does not notify the police.

Mr Reader Harris: It was, I my Amendment which the Minister accepted in principle in Committee. I am duly grateful to him for having done so and for implementing his promise by this Amendment, which I think an excellent one. The word "notifying" is well understood in fire brigade circles, local authority circles and, I think, factory circles. It does not mean sending a postcard to let the brigade know that there is a fire. That occurred only in the world of the late-lamented Rob Wilton. The wording of the Amendment, which follows the wording of my Amendment, suits me and I hope that it will suit the Committee.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 6, line 37, leave out from " occupier " to " may " in line 38 and insert:
(5)Any requirement imposed by regulations made under subsection (2) of this section" [Mr. Wood.]

Clause 9. — (SAFETY PROVISIONS IN CASE OF FIRE.)

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 7, line 11, to leave out paragraph (c) and to insert:
(c) for subsection (7) (which in the case of certain factories requires the provision of fire warnings) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
(7) In every building which is, forms part of or comprises a factory to which section thirty-four of this Act applies, effective means, capable of being operated without exposing any person to undue risk, shall be provided and maintained for giving warning in case of fire, which shall be clearly audible throughout the building or, where the factory is part only of the building, in every part of the building which is used for the purposes of the factory".
This Amendment attempts to meet two requests. The first was that any factory that requires a certificate should also have a fire alarm. This seemed to my right hon. Friend an entirely reasonable request and he is trying to give effect to it. The second was a request by the Opposition that a fire warning should be so situated as to allow the operator to escape. We have tried to meet that point by requiring that the means of warning shall be
capable of being operated without exposing any person to undue risk".
I hope that the House will feel that we have met the two requests.

Mr. Robens: I am grateful that the Parliamentary Secretary was good enough to seize on the points discussed in Standing Committee. My own view is that he has met the points raised very well.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Wood: I beg to move, in page 7, line 17, after " (7) " to insert:
in any case where it appears to him that those requirements are unnecessary or, as the case may be, would, unless modified, be unreasonable ".

The purpose of the Amendment is to meet a point raised when, the power that my right hon. Friend wanted to exempt in certain cases from the requirement to have an audible fire alarm did not meet entirely with agreement and he undertook to consider whether he could go a little


further on Report and suggest a form of words which would modify his right of exemption. I hope that the House will be satisfied that if the Amendment is accepted exemptions or modifications will be granted only in cases where this can safely be done without danger to people employed in a factory or workshop.

Mr MacDermot: We had a somewhat vigorous discussion on this point in Committee. Many of us were uneasy about the power of exemption, which we felt was much too widely drawn. We suggested that it should be cut down roughly in the way done in the Amendment. I would commend the Amendment to my hon. Friends and hope that it will be accepted.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause. — (POWERS OF ENTRY OF OFFICERS OF FIRE AUTHORITIES.)

Mr Wood: I beg to move, in page 8, line 17, to leave out from " of " to " duties " and to insert:
reporting to the inspector on any matter falling within the inspector's ".

Mr Speaker: I think that the Amendment in page 8, line 24, at the end to insert:
(3) An inspector shall not authorize an officer of a fire brigade to enter or inspect any premises except with the consent of the authority maintaining the brigade.
goes with this one.

Mr Wood: I agree, Mr. Speaker.
These Amendments stem from a considerable succession of discussions which we had in Committee about the relationship between the certifying authorities, county councils and county borough councils, on the one hand, and the factory inspectorate on the other.
Perhaps I may briefly suggest to the House the principles which I think should be borne in mind. I hope that I can also satisfy the House that we are meeting those principles which I hope in turn will be acceptable.
In Clause 6, which we have been discussing this evening, we have given effect to the first principle, that the duty of issuing certificates as to means of escape in case of fire should rest with the county councils and county borough councils. We agreed in Committee, I think, that the responsibility for other fire

matters, to use that abbreviation which will be very familiar to Members of the Committee, should rest with the Factory Inspectorate, that is to say, all other matters apart from inspection of means of escape. That is met by the general requirements of Clause 13.
9.30 p.m.
The third principle was that, when an officer of a fire brigade is designated by the appropriate council to carry out the duty of examining fire escapes, it should be possible for a factory inspector to empower him to look at other fire matters. The purpose of the first Amendment, the one in page 8, line 17, is to secure that result. The fourth principle was that the factory inspector should be able to empower an officer of the fire authority to examine other fire matters in factories than those dealt with in Section 34 of the 1937 Act. That, again, would be achieved by the first Amendment.
We agreed also that the factory inspector should empower officers of fire brigades in the last two senses which I have been mentioning only with the consent of the fire authority. The factory inspector would have to obtain the consent of the fire authority before he gave the permission. That is what we are trying to achieve by the second Amendment, in page 8, line 34.
Lastly, there was a point about which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), among others, felt very strongly. He felt that the fire brigade officer when he made his inspection and noted certain things about other fire matters should report to the factory inspector and the factory inspector would then take the necessary action. That, also, is met by the first Amendment.
I hope, therefore, that what I have said will convince the House that we have tried our best to meet all the principles which were generally agreed by the Committee. If there is anything which we have, by any chance, overlooked, we shall certainly consider further any advice which the House may give us. I think that we have generally kept our undertakings, and I hope that the House will accept the Amendments.

Mr MacDermot: It is not an exaggeration to say that (these two Amendments, modest though they appear, are among the most important of all the Amendments on the Notice Paper. The starting


point is the fact — I hope that the whole House will agree on it now, after our earlier lengthy discussion — that fire prevention is a highly technical matter. There are in he fire brigades specialist fire prevention officers who are able to give exceedingly useful and valuable advice, which no one else is able to give.
As a result of the Bill and these Amendments, if accepted, there will in future be two different authorities, as it were, who will be able to authorise fire prevention officers to go into factories. One will be the certifying authority under Section 34, which will now be the county borough council or county council, and the other will be the factory inspector. Of course, the certifying authorities themselves will have different responsibilities. Quite clearly, it would be a great waste of time if, when the fire prevention officer was inside a factory looking round, he was not able to look at the factory from both points of view.
Considerable care has had to be taken, and I think has successfully been taken. in the drafting of the Amendment to see that nobody's corns have been trodden on and that fire prevention officers do not cause trouble or difficulties by investigating and reporting on matters without notifying the necessary authorities and getting their permission before exercising the roving commission which we would like them to exercise.
The success of this operation will depend entirely on close and intimate liaison between three different bodies, that is to say, the certifying authority, the fire prevention officer, and the factory inspector. If the provisions which we are passing into law are to work, it is essential that there is really close personal co-operation between the officials representing these three bodies.
To show the complexity of it, perhaps we might consider the case of a fire prevention officer being sent by a district council to inspect a factory for the purposes of a certificate under Section 34 of the Factories Act, 1937. Before the officer is able to look at and report upon the aspects of fire prevention which concern the factory inspector, he will have to notify the factory inspector that he is going, he will have to ask the factory inspector for authority to report upon matters which concern the factory inspector, and he will have to receive authority in writing from the factory inspector to do

so. If he has done all those things he can then look at all the aspects of fire prevention and make his report to the factory inspector.
This machinery may seem very complicated, but it is necessary. I need not go into the reasons now. A number of reasons were put forward during our discussions in Committee why misunderstandings and complications might arise if this procedure were not adopted to ensure that the proper authorities were obtained. I hope that the Minister will use his influence to ensure the very closest degree of co-operation between these three different authorities and that these provisions are put to valuable use. If that is done, this will be amongst the most important changes in the law made under this Bill.

Mr. Reader Harris: I hope the House will excuse me if I say a few words, and after that I promise to say no more on the Report stage in view of the lateness of the hour.
The importance of this Clause is that it sets out quite clearly the rights of a fire brigade officer in a fire authority. The position is that the fire authority can send the fire brigade officer into a factory, as of right, under Clause 6 of the Bill to deal with escape certification and also to follow up inspections in connection with means of escape certificates. There is also a right under the Fire Services Act, 1947, Section 1 (I, d) enabling a fire authority to send one of its fire brigade officers into a factory to look at the fire fighting arrangements.
There is still no power, as of right, for a fire authority to send one of its tire brigade officers to examine the premises for fire prevention. It can send one of its officers in under Section 1 (1, f) of the 1947 Act if the property owner invites the fire authority to do so. There will now be a right for a fire brigade officer to enter a factory if the factory inspector invites him to do so. This, therefore, does not mean that the Government have gone as far as I had hoped, but I will not argue about it. The Minister, perhaps, has done the right and sensible thing, and I accept it.
If a fire brigade officer, having been sent in to examine for certification the means of escape or the fire fighting arrangements, happened to see something which he did not regard as being good


fire prevention he would not be able to do anything about it. I gave an example to the Committee of an actual case where in a cellulose spray shop it was found that the partition was built of breeze-blocks and the cavities of the blocks had become filled with cellulose, turning the shop into a deathtrap. In the event of a fire, the factory would have gone up in a sheet of flames in a matter of seconds. The fire brigade officer had no right to say, " You must take the partition down and put up a glazed wall which can be washed." In practice, he must ring up the factory inspector arid tell him, under what I described in Committee as Section 1 of the " Old Pals Act ", " There is something wrong and you must do something about it."
The House must be quite clear that a great deal of co-operation will still be needed on a purely voluntary basis between the fire authority and the Factory Inspectorate. I should have liked the fire authority to have had power to say to the owner of a factory, " You must do something about this." As things have turned out, this must be done through the Factory Inspectorate, but I will not argue about that now. I think that the Bill is an enormous advance in every way.

Mr. C. Howell: Like the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris), I, also, am disappointed that the Minister has not gone the whole way. In Committee, I mentioned what happens when this type of inspection takes place on the railways and how, if anyone gets a hint or a tip that the inspector is visiting one spot, the news is passed on immediately and everybody elsewhere is ready for him. That will happen in this case, too, if the inspector is not able to make spot checks. The Clause gives no powers of entry to officers of the fire authorities for that purpose. Even now their powers are to be restricted, though I approve the Amendment, which will widen the scope of certain of their powers to some extent.
It would have been a very Gilbertian situation if a fire prevention officer were to enter a factory and, when he saw that although the means of exit was all right something else was entirely wrong, he could be told that he had not entered the factory for that purpose and that the

second matter had nothing to do with him. I am not happy, however, about the provision which says that a fire brigade officer shall not be authorised to enter and inspect any premises except when authorised in writing by an inspector.
What does that mean? Does it mean that he must obtain a certificate from the authority in respect of every premises that he enters Has he a carte blanche authority, like a police officer with his warrant? Does he obtain a warrant to enable him to carry out these duties as he thinks fit or, as I explained to the Committee, will he be in the position where, for instance, he may be in charge of a hydrant inspection party and, though he sees that the factory is transgressing regulations governing fire prevention, he cannot go into that factory until he obtains a certificate from the Factory Inspectorate in respect of it?
9.45 p.m.
Is that what it means? Must he have a special authority which will bear the name and address of the factory? Is he to have it every time? Can he not go in without a special authority? Is he not to have a warrant? I hope that the Minister will have a look at this, because it would curtail the officer's powers and place him in a very invidious position if be sees something at 5.30 p.m. and knows perfectly well that the inspector will have gone home or be somewhere else and he cannot get in contact with him, while knowing that there is a fire risk somewhere.
Do not let us lose sight of the fact, which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North mentioned in his remarks, that this can possibly be the most important part of this Bill. To me, it is most important, for this reason. One can have the finest fire-fighting appliances and organisation in the world, but it is not half as important as preventing the fire in the first place. We simply do not need any life-saving and fire-fighting appliances until we have a fire, and if we can prevent the fire, and if we think of the old adage that prevention if better than cure, then, obviously, we must agree that fire prevention is the important thing, far more important than firefighting itself. It should come first.
Here is one way in which we can insist on giving greater powers to fire prevention officers to see that they are able to


carry out their duties. It is most important that they should carry them out by a spot check, without anybody knowing that they are visiting the factories. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will recall that I mentioned this in Committee. With the best will in the world, it is possible for loose conversation between certain people to indicate to someone else that the factory inspector is to visit a certain factory. It can be done unwittingly. Someone may drop a hint that the fire prevention officer is to visit a particular factory.
It may well be that when he gets there he may find that conditions in that factory are very good indeed, but they may only be temporary and produced for his benefit. It is not only in the Armed Forces that there is " bull ". Whenever it is known that the factory inspector is to visit a particular factory, it is always somebody's job to have a look round before he gets there to make sure that there is no transgression of the law. Once he has gone again — and the Minister gave details of how many factories have not been examined for many years, because we know that there is a shortage of inspectors and they do not get round half as often as they should do — it is fair to assume that when a factory has just been examined it will be a long time before he comes round again.
If the people concerned know that the inspector has been and is not likely to come again for a while, they can relax and get a little slack again. I therefore hope that by a spot check we will give the fire prevention officer the opportunity of doing something which will keep these people on their toes.

Mr Wood: I do not think that any of us would have any real complaint if we felt that a whisper of a future visit by the factory inspector or fire prevention officer did, in fact, secure perfection in the fire prevention arrangements in a factory, but it is about the general matters which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Banr (Mr. C. Howell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris) have raised that I should like to say a few words.
I think that we want to avoid, if I may suggest it to the House, making too heavy weather about this. A fire prevention officer goes to a factory to inspect

the means of fire escape, and if he sees things such as my hon. Friend suggested at the same time then, obviously, he would get in touch with the factory inspector and say, " This is happening here. Something ought to be done about it." If, as we are visualising, the fire prevention officer and the factory inspector arrange a certain rota of visits in the future, the factory inspector can very easily give to the fire prevention officer full authority to look at what we abbreviated in the Committee to other fire matters " and report to him through the procedure that we have.
Therefore, in practice, I do not think that there will be great difficulty. If we find that there are difficulties we will try to put them right, but I think that if there is common sense and the fire prevention officer looks around him when he is inspecting for fire escapes and receives authority for the full examination of the other fire matters, this will work well. I commend the Amendments to the House.

Mr. Robens: I rise only to say that when we were discussing these matters in the Committee I had two principles in my mind. One was that without doubt the factory inspector was a responsible officer under the Factories Act and that one should not detract from his responsibilities one iota. The second was that in the matter of fire prevention he should have the best advice of the most efficient technical experts in the country who, I always feel, are the fire prevention officers.
We need to combine these two duties without overlapping and without conflict and I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend on producing Amendments which have met the situation. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris) humorously suggested that this co-operation would be under Section 1 of the " Old Pals' Act ". That may well be the case, but I am certain that the inspector will be glad of the services of the fire prevention officer.
I am equally certain that the fire prevention officer will be more than delighted to know that when he goes into a factory with the authority of the factory inspector he will be able to look at all other fire matters and will be able to report them


to the inspector. I believe that the relationship between the inspectors and the fire prevention officers will be such that there will be mutual regard for one another's functions and duties, and that any reports of the factory inspector will be acted upon.
Now that the law is being established 1 regard this as a matter of administration, and I am satisfied that the degree of harmony in the relation between the factory inspectors and the fire prevention officers will be such that it will carry out the best intentions of Parliament.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 8, line 24, at the end to insert:
(3) An inspector shall not authorise an officer of a fire brigade to enter or inspect any premises except with the consent of the authority maintaining the brigade. — [Mr., Wood.]

Clause 14. — (FIRST AID.)

Mr Macleod: I beg to move, in page 8, line 32, to leave out certain ".

Mr Speaker: I suggest that this and the next two Amendments to lines 34 and 35 can be taken together.

Mr Iain Macleod: I am now coming back into the firing line, Sir. I thought I had arranged an exact division with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, but now I think I have had the better of the bargain because we spent so much time on Clause 6.
In Committee, we had more than one excellent debate on this important Clause, which deals with first-aid. The main point put to me then was on the question of the number 50, which is laid down in Section 45 of the 1937 Act as the number which requires that a responsible person in charge of the first-aid box shall be trained in first-aid treatment. A number of hon. Members opposite urged that smaller factories ought to have a person trained in first-aid, and I undertook that by Report stage I would see whether 50 was or was not the right minimum.
Frankly, I am not yet ready to say whether 50 is or is not the right number, but these Amendments give me the power, which, I think, meets entirely what was urged in Committee, to alter this number. Section 45 of the 1937 Act would not allow me to vary the minimum number.

These three Amendments are necessary to enable me to fulfill my undertaking and to enable me or any other Minister of Labour, if he so desires, to reduce the figure from 50.

Mr. Lee: We are grateful to the Minister for putting down these Amendments. He has reminded us of the very important discussion which we had in Committee about the whole question of the boxes and how we should treat them. For my part, I am confirmed in my opinion that the sooner we get rid of such things the better, no matter what size the factory, but I recognise at once that that is not a practical proposition and that we shall probably have to compromise for a considerable time.
By these Amendments the Minister is probably taking the right approach in all the circumstances. We are grateful to him for what he has done. We do not feel by any means that it is the end of the story in this phase of factory legislation, but it is probably the best attempt which can be made. We are grateful to him for making it and we join with him in commending the Amendments to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 8, line 34, after " treatment ", insert:
if more than fifty persons are employed in the factory ".

In page 8, line 35, at end insert:
and the Minister may by regulations extend that requirement to cases where the persons employed exceed such lower number as may be specified in the regulations ".— [Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Clause 18.—(EXEMPTIONS FROM PROVI- SIONS REGULATING HOURS OF EM- PLOYMENT.)

Mr. Iain Macleod: I beg to move, in page 9, line 36, to leave out " by order ".

Mr. Speaker: I think that this and the next Amendment in page 9, line 45, go together. Perhaps with them go the first five Amendments to page 10.

Mr. Macleod: I agree that this and the next six Amendments are on precisely the same point.
The Clause is a most important Clause because it puts into permanent form powers which have been used by successive Ministers of Labour over the last nineteen years mainly under Defence Regulations. The major point which


emerged from our Committee discussion was some anxiety on the question of consultation and agreement, which is a familiar argument to all hon. Members which turns up at every Committee stage. I suggested a solution which I think met with general approval and which the seven Amendments enshrine. This was that when an order was a general exemption order it should take the form of special Regulations. This meets the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) in relation to Joint Industrial Councils, because the whole point of the Amendments is that if we have the procedure laid down in the Second Schedule of the 1937 Act, all tile bodies concerned have then to be consulted and one of the first, if not the first, which would be so consulted would be a J.I.C.
10.0 p.m.
What I suggest is that we amend the Clause with all seven Amendments. Then if, at any time, a general exemption is granted—it might relate to an industry or part of an industry— it will be by special regulations. That means that the regulations will be published in draft. If objections are raised, an inquiry can be conducted. Even after that, the whole authority of the House of Commons remains. This would be a substantial improvement to the Clause and I recommend these Amendments to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 9, line 45, leave out by an order ".

In page 10, line 4, leave out " order " and insert:
instrument by which it is granted".

In line 6, leave out from beginning to extending " in line 7 and insert " An exemption under this section ".

In line 10, leave out " is referred to " and insert:
shall be granted by order, to be known".

In line 11, leave out from " other" to end of line 12 and insert:
exemption under this section shall be granted by special regulations, to be known as general exemption regulations".

In line 17, leave out " a general exemption order " and insert " general exemption regulations ".—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Mr. Iain Macleod: I beg to move, in page 10, line 22, at the end to insert:
(b) on the application of a wages council; or.

This is a simple drafting Amendment to provide that a wages council should be able to apply for a general exemption. I am advised that a wages council cannot be described as a body similar to a joint industrial council. Obviously, it should be included.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 19.—(TENEMENT FACTORIES AND PARTS OF BUILDINGS LET OFF AS SEPARATE FACTORIES.)

Mr. Speaker: The two Amendments to the Clause seem to go with the new Schedule— (Modifications of certain provisions in relation to factories occupying parts of buildings). Perhaps they can all he taken together.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I beg to move, in page 11, line 7 to leave out from the second " of " to " shall " in line 8 and to insert
the Schedule (Modifications of certain provisions in relation to factories occupying parts of buildings) to this Act ".
I agree, Mr. Speaker, that this and the following Amendment, in page 11. to leave out from the beginning of line 9 to the end of line 18 on page 12, are paving Amendments to the new Schedule. I will read my brief without comment. It is thought that these changes will make the provisions easier to understand. Whether that is true, I do not know.

Mr Lee: Is that in the brief?

Mr. Macleod: No, I have left it. I am now on my own. I am told that for some reason, which I do not understand, it is easier to draft in simpler terms in a Schedule than in a Bill. That is why it is better to move virtually the whole of the Clause into the new Schedule.
Perhaps I should say in a sentence what the Schedule does. It is essentially an allocation of responsibilities between the owners and occupiers of what are called tenement factories and of other factories in what are called multiple-occupancy buildings. The only point to mention on the Schedule is one which arises in paragraph 6. Its purpose is to meet an important and valuable point raised by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot). We now provide that a fire alarm in a Section 102 factory shall be audible in every part of the building used for the purposes of that or any other factory. I think that most anxieties which people have about these fire alarms in those buildings


in which there is more than one factory will be met.
The Amendment and the next are really paving the way to the new Schedule, and the key point in the Schedule is the one which I have outlined.

Mr MacDermot: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the Amendment he is making to the law in redrafting this and putting it in the form of a new Schedule. As to his comment about making the matter clearer, I think, speaking in a professional capacity as a lawyer, that I would agree that it does make it clearer, but I very much doubt whether to anyone who is not a lawyer the new Schedule could possibly be described as clear. It is impossible that it should be, because it is an intensely complicated matter which is being dealt with. Equally, however, it is extremely important that the occupiers of the factories should know what the law is on the matter, because this affects the division of responsibilities where there are several factories within the same building, the division of responsibilities between the occupiers of the different factories and the owner of the building.
I would suggest for the consideration of the Minister that it might be wise to get out a leaflet in language which a layman can understand and which summarises what is the effect of these provisions, for otherwise I find it very difficult to see how any occupier of a factory will know what it is that he is meant to do and what it is that the owner of the building is meant to do.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 11, line 9, leave out from beginning to end of line 18 on page 12.— [Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Clause 20.—(PROMOTION OF HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE.)

Mr Iain Macleod: I beg to move, in page 12, line 23, at the end to insert:
and for the purpose of investigating such problems he may provide and maintain such laboratories and other services as appear to him requisite ".
Clause 20, as the House knows, is one to which I attach great importance. It deals with the promotion of health, safety and welfare in factories. I think that we could reasonably argue in Committee that I had the powers to provide and maintain laboratories. Still, I said that I attached such importance to this matter

that I thought it would be a good thing, despite my usual inclinations, which are not to be too precise in a Bill, to spell this matter out.
There are really two points of difference between this Amendment and that which the Opposition moved in Committee. The first is—and I think that this is right—that I take permissive powers to do this when I consider it is appropriate. I think that this must be left as a matter for the Minister to decide. The word " research " has been dropped. It was in the Amendment which the Opposition moved. The reason is mainly that the word " research " is restrictive and would mean that I could establish a laboratory only for the purposes of research.
Secondly, to some extent it gave rather the wrong flavour to the Clause, because I think that research as such, in the sense in which it is normally understood, should probably best not be carried out by my Department but by the D.S.I.R., or the M.R.C., or whatever the appropriate body may be. I have certain facilities for the investigation of problems in this field, but I would like to put these requirements into the Bill as part of Clause 20. We had a valuable discussion on this matter in Committee and I hope that the House will feel that the Amendment meets the sense of what the Committee wanted and will accept it.

Mr. Lee: We all have our own views as to the most important Clause of the Bill. I think that this is the most important issue which we can discuss within the framework of the present Bill in that for the first time in factory legislation a Minister of Labour is accepting the responsibility for the promotion of health, safety and welfare.
Factory legislation in years gone by has never pinpointed such responsibilities on either the Board of Trade in the old days or the Ministry of Labour since. Therefore, it is quite a break from our background of factory legislation for us to put responsibility for the promotion of health, safety and welfare upon a Government Department.
On this side of the House, we welcome the Clause and the Amendment. I am not sure, however, that I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about research. This is a matter of balance. I know that industry itself must undertake much research work, work peculiar


to an industry and even to a particular factory within an industry.
On the other hand, I take a serious view of the Clause and the Amendment. As at present constituted, the Factory Department cannot provide the right hon. Gentleman with the information essential to carrying out the duties which the House is placing upon him for the promotion of health, safety and welfare.
I know that there is a political difference between the two parties about how much responsibility industry should take and how much should be taken by a Government Department, but apart from that basic difference the Minister himself is undertaking to be responsible for health, safety and welfare. That being the case, the House is entitled to ask him whether he or his Department is in a fit state to allow him to honour the obligation which he is now accepting. With my limited knowledge of the Factory Department, I do not believe that it is in a position to enable the right hon. Gentleman to have the information required for the promotion of these objectives.
I was a little alarmed that the right hon. Gentleman should have deleted the reference to research, because research is the kernel to that ability of his Department to provide him with power to undertake the responsibilities which he is now incurring.

Mr Iain Macleod: I want the word research " to be excluded since its inclusion would limit me to that one purpose. Normally, the M.R.C., the D.S.I R. and similar organisations undertake research on these aspects. It may well be that in certain circumstances this would be a proper function for me to undertake. I have three laboratories which work in this sort of way. I do not want to take powers for research alone, but my idea includes research and does not exclude it. I merely want to have the widest possible scope, including research, to set up laboratories.

10.15 p.m.

Mr Lee: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that explanation which goes a long way to cover the point that I was labouring.
The main point, on which I now see that he is himself convinced, is that it is not much use for the right hon. Gentle-

man to accept certain responsibilities unless he fortifies himself with the capacity to carry them out. I am grateful to him for what he has said. I agree with him that in research, if we itemise one type of development then, by inference, we exclude others, and I do not want to do that. Is he now satisfied with his facilities, or will he tell the House that once it has given these powers to him he intends to develop his own Factory Department or other sections, whether D.S.I.R. or any other department, in order that the House can he assured that this is not merely so many words?
We are entitled to expect that he will set up or create organisations which give him the facility to act. If that is so, we feel that the Clause and the Amendment will put into operation those things for which we have asked for so long. If he is able to say to us that he is now setting up or using in some way or other, through the Factory Department or D.S.I.R., facilities which will enable him to make a living reality out of the task we are now giving him, we shall be very grateful to him for what he has done.

Dr. Stross: When we were discussing this matter in Committee, I made a long and, I fear, a somewhat tedious speech on this subject. I have thought about it to a great extent since then. I like the Amendment and I think that it covers the possibilities and contingencies that might occur in the future.
In Committee I thought that I made clear that I was personally averse to the Minister directing his mind to substantial research on these problems. I thought that it would be much more effective to use the accredited and acknowledged research organisations of this country and direct them to do whatever piece of fundamental research was required and pay them for it. Research organisations are few and far between, if they arc good, and they are certainly very expensive to maintain. The last thing that we want to do is to have something that is not absolutely fire-class. To insist that the Minister creates a first-class organisation which is very expensive and which duplicates other organisations already in the field is not our intention at all, and we are happy to hear what he has said tonight.
I think that the addition of these further words to the Clause gives him all


possible power. He uses the word " laboratory ". What is done there? It is work that may include research. If research is required it is done in the laboratory. It is also there for doing routine examinations, such as blood counts and various types of biological and physiological estimations.
I hope the Minister will forgive me if 1 repeat very briefly why l think this is a most important Clause. We are very anxious that the Minister of Labour should take only powers at this stage which are permissive and which will allow him to give us an occupational health service. This is something leading towards it. We know that £5,000 mentioned in the Bill does not mean anything very serious to us. We know that the Minister can spend money almost at will. He spent a considerable amount of money on the public health survey, and quite a lot on the Halifax survey. Whatever service he wishes to undertake he provides extra money, which is nothing to do with this £5,000 which superficially appears to limit him.
Several years have gone by since the right hon. Gentleman and many other hon. Members began discussing the matter and hearing talk about the creation of an occupational health service, but we are no nearer to it now than we have ever been.

Mr Ellis Smith: Whom does my hon. Friend blame?

Dr. Stross: I am asked whom I blame. The fact is that there is no serious desire for an occupational health service I am not even sure that the T.U.C. is pressing the Minister as hard today as it pressed his predecessor in 1954. People are beginning to accept the idea that they will never have such a health service, and that is a great shame, because it could be tremendously useful. I do not want to go into too wide a discussion, but with his long experience as Minister of Health and his intimate experience as Minister of Labour I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman must to some extent agree with me when I express disappointment that we have not moved rather faster in this direction. We welcome the provision, but I suspect that the Minister would like to move faster. I do not know how we could do so, however, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell us whether

he has any expectations in that direction. We have had two surveys, and years have gone by without anything further being done. Much is to be gained for the nation if somebody will have the courage to give us a service for the workers.

Mr. D. Jones: I welcome the Amendment because it goes a good deal further than the original draft. However, lest it be thought by people reading the Press reports tomorrow that the Minister is taking power to promote health, safety and welfare; I would remind the Minister and the House that all he is doing is to take these powers in respect of those processes and industries to which the principal Act applies. Speaking from memory, I believe it is true that the Mines and Quarries Act gives a more limited power to the Minister of Power to deal with the mining and quarrying industries. but I would remind the House that if the Minister obtains the power provided in the Amendment, and it is limited to the industries, trades and professions to which the principal Act applies, shops, offices, hotels, restaurants and the catering industry generally, indoor and outdoor entertainment, rail and road transport, fishing, shipping and domestic employment will still be outside the scope of the Minister, in that he will not be able to spend one copper in conducting research into them.
This is a limiting factor. In view of the fact that the Minister has jurisdiction in other respects over the industries that I have mentioned he should have widened the provision to enable him to conduct inquiries and research into them. If the Bill becomes law those industries and establishments, with the exception of locomotive running sheds, will be the Cinderellas of industry, although they are just as entitled as other industries to have research undertaken on their behalf. There are diseases and afflictions which apply to a number of these industries on which additional research ought to take place.
The Minister ought to widen the scope of this provision considerably. If it is good, and I think it is, that research, development and inquiry should take place into the industries covered by the principal Act, and if the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954, does it for the mines and quarries industry, what logical reason can there be for excluding other industries from this type of inquiry? I hope that


the Minister will cease to treat this group of industries as Cinderellas and, somehow or other, will widen the scope in order to bring in all industrial workers.

Mr A. Blenkinsop: I intervene briefly, and with some apology at this late stage, to say that I appreciate that very much importance must be attached to this provision, in, as much as great developments that could take place in the standard of health could come from a great expansion in the direction of an occupational health service.
I would ask the Minister, because of his experience in his previous office, what steps he is taking to make sure, on the points mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stress), that use is being made of the research establishments of the Medical Research Council and of some of our universities and of the work which is being done at a few of our teaching hospitals. The right hon. Gentleman must be aware, as we all are, of the dangers that can arise from work of this sort being developed in isolation, away from the comparable work being done more directly through the hospital service. I know of the assistance being given in some areas on Tyneside to experimental developments in the way of a laboratory service, and a sketch plan of an industrial health service.
One knows of the appalling shortage of helpers in this field. We cannot afford to waste anybody who can give useful service and, I imagine, can provide training for others. Here is a field of work for the specialist and for the general practitioner doctors to be trained. I hope that in the centers run under the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry or in other ways there will be facilities for the general practitioner doctor to learn about the work that is going on in some of these directions so that he can play a useful part in industry.
I am not opposing the proposal but am welcoming the desire to extend the facilities and am asking what steps the Minister is taking to ensure that they can run together with developments taking place under the auspices of the Minister of Health.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Those short speeches take us very wide indeed, but that is not surprising because Clause 20 was, quite deliberately, made very wide. The hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) made a gallant and perhaps even a last attempt to raise the ghost of Gowers.

Mr D. Jones: indicated dissent.

Mr. Macleod: The last on this Bill perhaps. I do not expect, because that would be asking too much, that he should be grateful to us for including the railway running sheds within the ambit of this factories legislation. He might at least have been surprised, as he knows perfectly well that he is. He did not expect to get that when the Bill started. To that extent he has been successful, because I have listened to and met that part of his case.
10.30 p.m.
Both the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. East (Mr. Blenkinsop), who are expert in this field, raised the question of the occupational health service. I do not think it would be appropriate to go into it in any detail now—not because of the time, but on this Amendment—but I would just say that anybody who has held, as T have, the two key Ministries, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour, must be, as I am, deeply interested in the subject.
It is true that the pressure for an occupational health service is less, for a variety of reasons, than it was a few years ago, but I look forward to it very much. There are tremendous questions of administration to be settled and of allocation between the Ministries. These are matters which we cannot debate at this moment, but in answer particularly to the point made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East, one thing that I regard as important in trying to make sure that there is liaison between the Ministries is a sort of body like my Industrial Health Advisory Committee over which I preside and which has representatives of those two Ministries and of many people concerned. Incidentally, it was at meeting of the I.H.A.C. that the question of the provision of laboratories


for the Ministry of Labour was first raised, the matter that we are discussing now. So it is a matter on which there is liaison, though whether it is perfect or not I should not like to say. However, of my interest in the development of an occupational health service for this country there need be no doubt.
We have for the moment immediately before us this proposal which everyone has welcomed. In answer to the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee), who asked the key question—" Is this words, or do you mean it?"—the answer is that I hope and intend to use these powers if the House will now give them to me.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 23.—(AMENDMENTS AS TO CERTAIN PENALTIES.)

Mr Iain Macleod: I beg to move, in rage 13, line 25, to leave out " ten " and to insert " fifteen."
We now come to a group of seven Amendments. Earlier, there were two conflicting arguments, one which I put forward —not very convincingly —that we s should follow the precedent of the Mines and Quarries Act, and the other that we should take into account, among other things, the change in the value of money, which would mean on the whole not doubling but trebling the value of the penalties. It seems to me, on reflection, that the second is the stronger of the two arguments, and these Amendments are designed to carry it out. We shall then have inserted in the Clause the principle—I am not talking about the Schedules, which raise rather different matters —that the penalties should be trebled.

Mr MacDermot: The Opposition welcomes the Amendments, since they go some way to meet the argument that we put forward in Committee that the penalties set under the 1937 Act are far too small. We think they were too small in the first place, but with the fall in the value of money which has taken place since 1937 they have become derisory. The original Bill provided, broadly speaking, for doubling them, but that had not even caught up with the fall in the value of money and would have meant that the effect of the penalties would still have been less than it was in 1937.
It seems that the Government have been impressed by our argument, and even if they do not feel able to accept the policy of tying old-age pensions to the cost of living, perhaps they will be willing to tie the penalties under the Factories Act, though they have not gone quite as far as that.
My hon. Friends and I would have liked to see the penalties increased considerably. We do not want to start a witch hunt, and in most cases we do not suggest that where people are brought before the courts larger penalties are necessary, but some of the offences that are committed where workmen are unnecessarily subject to hazards, perhaps to their lives, in their work places are matters of very great importance indeed.
I think they can fairly be compared, as they were in Committee, to the hazards to life and limb on the roads. We should like to see power given the courts to impose really severe penalties in proper circumstances. So far as these Amendments go some way towards meeting our point of view, we welcome them and accept them.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 13, line 27, leave out " forty " and insert sixty."

In line 33, leave out " ten " and insert " fifteen."

In line 38, leave out " ten " and insert " fifteen."

In line 39, leave out " forty " and insert " sixty."

In line 40, leave out " fifty " and insert " seventy-five."

In line 40, leave out " two " and insert " three."—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Clause 25.—(REVOCATION OF DEFENCE REGULATION 59.)

Amendment made: In page 14, line 23, at end insert:
and any provision made by such an order which could have been made by special regulations under section eighteen of this Act shall be deemed, while the order is in force, to he contained in such regulations."—[Mr. lain, Macicod.]

Clause 26.—(REGULATIONS AND ORDERS.)

Amendment made: In page 14, line 34, leave out from "Act" to shall." [Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Clause 27.—(INTERPRETATION.)

Amendments made: In page 14, line 42, leave out from second "Act" to end of line 44.

In page 15, line 7, at end insert:
(4) References in any enactment to the Factories Acts, 1937 and 1948, shall he construed as including references to this Act.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Orders of the Day — New Schedule.—(MODIFICATIONS OF CER- TAIN PROVISIONS IN RELATION TO FACTORIES OCCUPYING PARTS OF BUILDINGS.)

1. Where a factory which is part of a building is either
(a).a part of a tenement factory; or
(b)a part let off as a separate factory but not a part of a tenement factory,


the owner of the building shall be substituted for the occupier as the person on whom any duties are imposed or rights conferred by the provisions to which this paragraph applies or on whom any notice is to be served there under or who is liable for any contravention thereof.

2. For the purposes of the provisions to which paragraph 1 of this Schedule applies

(a) the whole of a tenement factory shall be deemed to be one factory, and
(b) any such factory as is mentioned in sub-paragraph (b) of that paragraph shall be deemed to include any part of the building used for the purposes of the factory.

3. The provisions to which paragraph 1 of this Schedule applies are sections thirty-four to thirty-six of the principal Act and section twelve of this Act except subsections (1) and (8) of the said section thirty-six and so much of subsection (2) of the said section thirty-four as requires the means of escape to be kept free from any obstruction caused by the use of the factory.

4. Subsections (1) and (8) of section thirty-six of the principal Act shall apply to any part of a tenement factory which is not comprised within any of the separate factories as if that part were a factory and the owner were the occupier thereof.

5. The occupier of any such factory as is mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Schedule shall inform the owner of the building of any such proposal as is mentioned in subsection (5) of section thirty-four of the principal Act.

6. In relation to a building comprising such a factory as is mentioned in sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 1 of this Schedule, subsection (7) of section thirty-six of the principal Act shall have effect as if it required the warning referred to therein to be a warning in case of fire occurring anywhere in the building and to be audible in every part of the building which is used for the purposes of that or any other factory.

7.—(1) If on a complaint made by the owner of a building it appears to a magistrates' court that any occupier prevents him from carrying out any work, test or examination which he is required to carry out under the foregoing provisions of this Schedule, the court may order the occupier to permit him to do so.

(2) In the application of this paragraph to Scotland, for the references to a complaint and to a magistrates' court there shall be substituted respectively references to a summary application and to the sheriff.

8. In relation to any such factory as is mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Schedule, the provisions of the principal Act and this Act requiring certificates in respect of means of escape in case of fire and the registration of such certificates and of tests or examinations carried out in pursuance of section twelve of this Act shall have effect subject to the following modifications, that is to say

(a) the certificate under section thirty-four of the principal Act shall be issued to the owner of the building in which the factory is comprised and a copy thereof (or. if the

certificate relates to more than one factory, of the relevant parts thereof) shall be issued to the occupier of the factory;
(b). where the certificate relates to a tenement factory it shall, notwithstanding subparagraph (a) of paragraph 2 of this Schedule, contain particulars as to each of the separate factories;
(c). the references in subsection (1) of section thirty-four of the principal Act and in section twelve of this Act to the general register shall be construed as references to a register to be kept by the owner of the building, and subsection (3) of section one hundred and forty-two of the principal Act (which makes the general register evidence of certain matters) shall apply in relation to any register kept by the owner in pursuance of this paragraph as if he were the occupier of the factory;
(d) the reference in subsection (2) of section one hundred and sixteen of the principal Act (as amended by this Act) to the certificate shall be construed as a reference to the copy issued in pursuance of this paragraph.

9. Where, in the case of a certificate issued under section thirty-four of the principal Act before the coming into operation of this Schedule,—

(a) neither the certificate nor a copy thereof was issued to the owner mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 8 of this Schedule; or
(b) neither the certificate nor a copy thereof or of the relevant part thereof was issued to the occupier mentioned in that subparagraph;

the council by whom the certificate was issued shall, at his request, send him a copy thereof or, as the case may be, of the relevant part thereof; and the owner may, in the case of any such certificate, comply with the requirement as to its registration by attaching a copy thereof to the register mentioned in sub-paragraph (c) of the said paragraph 8.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I beg to move, That the Schedule be read a Second time.
We have already discussed this proposed new Schedule in relation to the switch of what was originally Clause 19.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Orders of the Day — First Schedule.—(INCREASE OF MAXIMUM PENALTIES.)

Mr. Ellis Smith: I beg to move, in page 16, line 7, column 3, to leave out " £200 "and insert" £400".
May we take this together with the next two Amendments, in page 16, line 8, column 3, leave out " £100 " and insert


"£200 ", and in line 9, column 3, leave out " £200 " and insert " £400 ", Mr. Deputy-Speaker?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): Yes.

Mr. Ellis Smith: My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) and I have tabled these Amendments in order to replace some of the new maximum penalties in this Schedule. I will explain our purpose for doing this.
When I was a boy I remember there were a number of shops with mirrors in them, and the people who owned these shops kept the mirrors as clean as possible. I could not understand this. As I became older I discovered that the reason was that these shops were where the local bookies assembled together, and whenever the police were about, and especially the plain clothes men, they could be seen by the people in the shops. Periodically there was a raid, but the people did not mind because the bookies contributed to the fine that was imposed, and then there was no more trouble for a long time.
We think there is something of that atmosphere about these present penalties. Some of us have experienced what has happened as a result of unfenced machinery; men have lost fingers and parts of their limbs as the result of accidents which could have been avoided had reasonable precautions been taken. We say that when men and women are subject to this kind of risk the maximum penalty should be higher than it is.
A few weeks ago I was talking to some highly-placed authorities responsible for the administration of the police, and they had been having difficulty in a certain area which I do not intend to name. They said that one of their problems was the fact that the penalty which was imposed in cases involving young people had not kept pace with the change in the value of money since pre-war days. These police officials were the type of men who had the confidence of people in the locality, and their view was therefore of value.
My hon. Friend, who has had great experience of these matters, who is a magistrate and has served on the bench for many years, and I thought that we ought to set an example in this respect by ensuring that the penalties in this

Schedule kept pace with the change in the value of money.

Mr. Tom Brown: In supporting the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), I wish to preface my remarks by expressing the hope that the Minister and the Department and those hon. Members who served on Standing Committee B will not think that this group of Amendments has been put down in any fault-finding spirit. I can assure the House that such is not the case. We have been given to understand that the proceedings in Standing Committee B were very harmonious and that the Minister and the Department were very accommodating. Far be it from me to strike a discordant note in the termination of the proceedings on the Pill.
As my hon. Friend has said, representations have been made to him and to myself, and probably to other people too, that the fines imposed on people responsible for many kinds of misdeeds are far too small. I do not want the Minister or the Department, or the House, to get the impression that I am a harsh kind of individual. I am not. I am just the reverse. But when I come across cases where there has been stupidity of the highest degree which has caused the loss of a limb or an eye and which could have been avoided I sometimes feel that I wish that I had the power of the Almighty to deal with the people responsible.
I am not suggesting that heavy fines will cause people to be careful and to exercise the jurisdiction which they should exercise, but there is something in having a heavy fine. Happily there are very few such cases, but it is those responsible for those cases whom I want brought to book. Therefore, I wish to impress upon the Minister what I said at the beginning of my speech, that these three Amendments have not been put on the Notice Paper in any fault-finding spirit. They represent a keen desire to see that the people who break the law are fined as heavily as possible.
I have been a county magistrate for thirty-seven years. Happily, very few cases of the kind we have in mind come before me, but when they do I wish that I could go a lot further than the law gives me power to go. That is the reason why these Amendments have been put down.

Mr Iain Macleod: Unlike the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), I am not a magistrate, though I feel, in the words of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), that I have spent years on the bench.
This series of Amendments was, in fact, discussed in Committee, and I hope that the hon. Members in whose names the Amendments stand will not press them because I believe that I can to some extent meet their anxieties. I believe that we have achieved what we might call a good " package deal " on this point.
The Amendments now proposed are, I think, for different sorts of offences. As far as the first Amendment is concerned, which deals with the maximum penalty for selling or letting on hire for use in a factory a power-driven machine with insufficient protection, we have, in Clause 22 of the Bill, made it easier to facilitate legal proceedings. That and the doubling of the penalty already set out in the First Schedule is, I believe, sufficient. As to the second one, relating to the inadequate examination of steam boilers, there has been no prosecution and, therefore, I do not believe that a deterrent greater than doubling the penalty is necessary.
10.45 p.m.
It would be on the third one that I would have the most sympathy. This is a penalty for operating a factory without a certificate as to the means of escape in case of fire. We thought, I think rightly, in Standing Committee that we should pick this penalty out from all the others and apply to it a different scale of values. Under this " package deal " as I have called it—though in fact there was no deal about it—it was agreed that the important penalties in Clause 23, in the main, should be trebled.
The ordinary penalties in the First Schedule, a rag-bag of miscellaneous penalties, some of very little significance in their effects, it was agreed, should be doubled, but offences against Section 34 of the 1937 Act should be picked out and both those penalties—the main one and the succeeding one for each day—should be quadrupled. Therefore, we have indicated as a House that in our opinion that penalty should be increased in proportion more than any other. I hope that hon. Members will be satisfied with that explanation. We believe

this penalty to be the right one to pick out and we have given it a higher proportionate increase than any other.

Mr Ellis Smith: After that satisfactory explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — Second Schedule.—(REPEALS.)

Amendments made: In page 16, line 31, column 3, at beginning insert:
In section twenty-eight, in subsection (1), the words " into any workroom

In line 36, column 3, at end insert:
In section thirty-four in subsection (14). paragraph (a).

In line 38, column 3, at end insert:
In section fifty-six, in subsection (1), the word "young".

In page 17, line 18, column 3, at end insert:
In section one hundred and sixteen, in subsection (2), the words " a copy of ".—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

Mr. Ellis Smith: On Third Reading—

Mr Speaker: The Question at the moment is not before the House, because the Third Reading has not been moved. I gather that the hon. Member wishes to move the adjournment of the debate, but the Question on Third Reading should be proposed from the Chair first. Mr. Macleod—Third Reading.

10.48 p.m.

Mr Iain Macleod: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I hope that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) will agree that we can have the Third Reading of this important Bill tonight. I feel in the position of the Dodo in " Alice in Wonderland " who, when asked who had won, said, " Everybody has won and all shall have prizes." As the House knows, I hold my party opinions and perhaps even my partisan opinions as fiercely as any hon. Member, but I feel that there are occasions when it may be right, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) has said, when we should mar the symmetry of our party recriminations. If there be such an occasion, I think that the welfare of those who work in factories can be taken to provide one.
I believe that in the matter of the number of Amendments accepted as they


stood or subject only to drafting alterations the passage of this Bill has been a record for a major Bill, certainly in my recollection. If I may be allowed to read from the words of one of great experience, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles), as he closed the final Sitting of the Standing Committee:
I have never had a less difficult Committee to preside over, and I have never had a more pleasant one either."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 12th March, 1959; c. 780]
I do not want to go into the details cf the Bill on Third Reading. We have hammered them out. The hon. Member for Newton said a few minutes ago that in time perhaps Clause 20 will be found to have been the most important Clause in the Bill. Here for the first time we place a statutory duty on the Minister that he shall—I emphasise shall "—promote the health, safety and welfare of those who work in factories.
We have made an enormously important stride forward, secondly, in the Clauses dealing with fire prevention, particularly by introducing for the first time the conception of prevention. I do not conceal my delight, which I know is shared to the full by the Parliamentary Secretary, from whom I have I had such splendid support through all stages of the Bill, that it has been possible while we have been at the Ministry of Labour, to make what I think is a substantial contribution to factory legislation.
I acknowledge straight away that it would not have been possible to make that contribution in this full measure without the help of the Standing Committee and the House, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) for the way in which he has led for the Opposition and to hon. Members opposite for the way in which they put their arguments in Standing Committee and on Report. I am grateful to all who supported me at all stages of the Bill.
I should like to leave the Bill with one last thought. The Bill at the moment is only a framework. It is a mistake which politicians sometimes make to think that just because they have said something then they have done something. That is not true. The work has not yet started. It starts from now, and we must look to both sides of industry, to local authorities and fire authorities, to the safety, health and welfare Department of my Ministry

and, above all, to that splendid corps to which so many tributes have been paid—the Factory Inspectorate—to make sure that what we have tried to do in words will be translated in time into deeds and will result in the years ahead in higher and higher standards of safety and welfare for all those who work in the factories.

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I beg to move, That the debate be now adjourned.
I will state my case in as reasonable a manner as possible. Indeed, the case which I was about to present has been reinforced by our experience since the Minister opened the Report stage. I remind the House—and I do not do this in any hypocritical manner but speaking objectively—that within the last year or two and especially the last twelve months we have spent days and days in the House dealing with the conditions and the lives of people in other parts of the world.
I take second place to none in my sympathetic approach to the problems of people in all parts of the world, but I spent some time in the House with great friends of mine whom I have to thank for a great deal, who were working-class characters and whom I am determined to remember. I will try to prove worthy of them. I recall the weeks and weeks and nights and nights which they spent here dealing with the lives of our own people. This is a question of degree. I do not want to carry it too far, but I think that this is a note which someone should strike. I have tried to make my contribution in striking this cautious note.
Let me make it clear that no one appreciates the work done by the Standing Committee more than I. I have read its proceedings and I feel that great credit is due to the Minister, to his advisers and to hon. Members on both sides of that Committee for the great constructive work which they did in Committee.
I am not one who believes in quibbling. I believe that our constitutional machinery must be made as efficient as possible and brought up to date so that we can look everyone in the eyes throughout the world and say that it functions efficiently in the interests of our country and of our people.
This, however, is a question of degree. I have taken a little interest in trying to


get myself informed on the democratic rights which we have won in this House over the centuries. In these days of steamrollering and when men are pre- pared to subordinate main principles because of certain ideas, it is necessary that a few hon. Members—and this applies also outside, in other walks of life—should have the courage to take a stand on occasions like this.
Since I have done that, as a result of our experience, my views have been reinforced. In what I shall say now, I do not want the Minister, and certainly not the Parliamentary Secretary, because he has been responsible for pioneering what I am speaking about, to imagine that I am striking this note in any critical sense. I am putting this forward, however, as firm evidence to show the correctness of the line I was taking earlier and the line I am taking now.
When we reached the second Amendment to the Minister's new Clause—(Floors, passages and stairs)—my hon. Friends—and I agreed with them—took exception to the word " reasonable." I was inclined to ask for a definition of what is reasonable. Eventually, the Minister said, " I will look at this later." If I understand the procedure correctly, that means that the Amendment will be inserted in another place.
According to my reading of Erskine May, it would be possible, after I produce this evidence, for Mr. Speaker to ask that the Bill be reprinted. To make a close analysis of the changes that have been rightly introduced—remember, I am speaking not critically, but objectively—and to do our duty to the people whom we represent, before we part with the Bill we ought to be able to examine it coolly at home and in the Library before we come to Third Reading or, if Mr. Speaker ordered the Bill to be reprinted and recommitted, so that we could come to the recommittal stage before it went to Third Reading.
Here is further evidence. On the next Amendment, the Minister said that the matter would be examined again. On the next one, he said, " I will consult my legal advisers." On the following one, when I dealt with provision for canteens, the Parliamentary Secretary was as magnanimous as it is possible for a Minister to be and I was very pleased.

At the same time, however, this means an examination and it will mean that the Bill goes to another place and the Amendment will be inserted there.
We are the people who are elected to represent the people. We are not in the House of Commons because of our parents. We are not here because we are highly placed in life. We are in the House of Commons because up to now we have commanded the confidence of our people. If we are to retain that confidence, it is necessary to try to be worthy of our people in this way
On the next Amendment, the Parliamentary Secretary said that, if necessary. at this and consider what action we can take." On the next one, the Parliamentary Secretary said that if necessary, the Government would put down an Amendment in another place. In the great discussion that took place concerning the fire authority, when my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) spoke in such an informative manner—he was well informed because of the responsibility he has held at the Home Office—the Parliamentary Secretary was greatly appreciative of it and he showed it. He concluded by saying, " I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, and I will look at this." He was referring to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields. Later the Parliamentary Secretary said he would look at something else. Then my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) expressed his concern on another Amendment—

Mr Speaker: I ask the hon. Member to show me how this bears on the question whether the debate should be now adjourned. We are on the Question of Third Reading. I gather that the hon. Member's argument is in general that many points have been reserved for reconsideration. That does not seem a valid argument why we should not proceed with the Third Reading.

Mr Ellis Smith: Thank you for your advice. Mr. Speaker. I drop that immediately.
I was trying only to give concrete evidence to show that it is essential that we should not proceed with the Third Reading tonight. According to Erskine May, previous Speakers have given instructions in a situation of this kind—


not in identical situations, but in similar situations—that the Bill should be reprinted. I thought that if there were sufficient support for the line I am taking such an instruction could be given in this situation. I was trying to produce evidence to show why it should be. I am satisfied that I have given enough evidence. More could have been given. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your advice and for jogging my memory. I hope I have given sufficient evidence to show that there is something in the appeal I am making that, when there is so much at stake, we should not proceed with the Third Reading at 11 o'clock at night.
I am reinforced by Erskine May. My wife told me, when she saw what I was doing, to remind the House that my copy at home is not one missing from the Library. It is one I look upon as though it were a great piece of gold. It is one of my greatest treasures. One of the finest journalists it has been my privilege to know, who retired from the Press Gallery some time ago, presented me with it. I rely on that copy, but I am armed with a modern copy which is out of the Library. I brought it out on condition 1 returned it, and that I shall do.
It is to you, in particular, Mr. Speaker. I address these words. On page 577 it says:
According to present practice in the House of Commons, the former course is frequently followed, and may, in fact, be regarded as the usual procedure, except where the bill is one of great importance …
Excuse my pausing there. In my view, there are few Bills which can he of more importance than this. There are few Bills which have been amended to the extent this Bill has been—to the Minister's credit, I think. I am not speaking critically. I said to my hon. Friend, when the right hon. Gentleman was speaking earlier at the Box, " It takes a big man to stand there and speak in that way." I have seen many Ministers speak at that Box and go away to be seen no more. I saw a great change in a man who had had great experience—the late Oliver Stanley who, as a result of being knocked about, and because of great experience, became one of the biggest men ever to stand at that Box. I say that to let it be clearly understood that in making these observations I am speaking in no critical sense.
This is one of the most important Bills which, in these times, could be brought before the House. It is twenty years since I served on a Committee which dealt with similar legislation and which included the then Home Secretary—and the least said about him the better. When one considers that we may have to wait another twenty years before the next Factories Bill or Consolidation Measure, the importance of this Bill will be appreciated.
Erskine May goes on:
… except where the bill is one of great importance or has been extensively amended on consideration; in such cases an interval before the third reading may he thought desirable ".
Is that reasonable? It is my main plea that it is. I could give further evidence from the careful notes which I have made and which are based on a careful analysis of Erskine May and Standing Orders.
I am convinced as never before that it is a reasonable proposition that at five minutes past eleven o'clock we should not go on with the Third Reading of a Bill which will affect millions of our fellow countrymen and that the House should be given an opportunity to make a close examination of the Bill in its final form before it goes to another place.
It may be that the Patronage Secretary will agree to my proposal to a postponement so that we can carry on in the sweet way the right hon. Gentleman mentioned and so that there will be no difficulty.

Dr. Stross: I beg to second the Motion.

11.7 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I do not often intervene in debates as Leader of the House at this hour. I do so partly out of deference to the Parliamentary experience of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), whom we all recognize as being one of our most experienced and lovable Members. Therefore, anything I say in answer to his Motion, and, I am afraid, by way of being unwilling to accept it, is not done in any sense of despising the attitude he has adopted on this occasion.
According to your earlier Ruling, Mr. Speaker, you thought that it would be right for the hon. Member to raise this


matter after my right hon. Friend had moved the Third Reading. The hon. Member has put his case and has been supported by his colleague from his own district, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross), in the way we associate with him.
The hon. Member quoted only one instance from Erskine May, which I also have with me. This copy, too, is not my own and will also be returned in due course. If the hon. Member looks at the relevant passage, he will see that it is a very general statement. If he looks at page 595 he will see that there is a statement that it is the normal practice for Report and Third Reading of Bills in the House of Commons to be taken on the same day.
It is true that that latter passage deals fundamentally with an emergency, but the words used are of general application. The hon. Member will see that the words used on page 577 are:
in such cases an interval before the third reading may be thought desirable.
It does not say it should be so. It says that it " may " be desirable.
If we take the hon. Member's argument seriously, as they should be taken, we have to look as his two other criteria. One was that the Bill was of great importance and the other was that it had been extensively amended on consideration, that is, consideration on Report. Clearly, the Bill is of great importance and the hon. Member was quite right to say so, but I find, looking back over twenty-five years, that the references in Erskine May date from 1933, 1934 and 1935.
That being so, I have to look back on what has been the normal practice of the House for the last twenty-five years or so. Much as we respect Erskine May, it is only case law and it can always be adapted in the light of further case law. Looking back over twenty-five years or so during which time I have been a Member, I find that Bills which may be regarded as socially desirable and not of great controversy are often taken with Third Reading following on Report.
The Amendments moved by my right hon. Friend were nearly all moved in order to meet points made in Committee. I cannot say that I have listened to the debate to the same extent as other hon. Members, because I have had other duties

to perform, but in so far as I have been able to do so it has appeared to me that it has taken place in a singularly felicitous atmosphere. I, like other hon. Members, have cancelled all my other engagements in order to be present in the House for any Divisions that might take place, but there has not been a single Division on any matter concerned with the Bill. To say that the Bill is controversial would therefore be quite untrue.
To say that the Bill is important would be true, but to say that it has been extensively amended on consideration would not, in that it has not been amended in a controversial manner. Considering the need for the expedition of Parliamentary business, and for making our procedure as sensible as possible, I really do not think that it is unreasonable to take the Third Reading tonight, and I hope that the House will agree with me.
When I announced the business for this week, I made it clear to the Opposition that it was our intention to take the Report and Third Reading together. In that respect there may be a division of opinion between the Front Bench opposite and private Members, but no formal objection was made by the Opposition to taking the Report and Third Reading together. Therefore, for the Government to ask the House to do so tonight is not breaking faith in any way.
I agree that private Members have the right of intervention, and nobody has used that right more liberally or persuasively than the hon. Member, but owing to the fact that we had a virtual understanding that it would not be unreasonable to take the Third Reading tonight; that this is a progressive Measure and is not highly controversial, and that the Amendments made tonight have been made mostly in order to meet points raised in Committee, it is reasonable for the House to proceed with the Third Reading. In view of the fact that it is now twenty-five years since the insertions in Erskine May which have been referred to were made, I hope that the House will be of the same opinion.

11.13 p.m.

Mr. Robens: As I was probably responsible for advising my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South-West (Mr. Bowden), who is the other end of


the usual channels, that we could reasonably take the Third Reading directly after completing the Report stage this evening, I would like to appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) to give further consideration to this matter. We are all well aware of the deeply conscientious interest which he takes in the question of the health, safety and protection of workers generally. and we all recognise that in moving his Motion tonight he acted with the highest of motives, desiring only to see that this legislation was as nearly perfect as it could be in every detail.
All I would say is that at no time in discussing these difficult matters in Committee did the Minister of Labour seek to curtail our discussion; indeed, he helped us considerably by making available to us a good deal of hitherto unavailable information. As a consequence, I can say on behalf of all those who served on that Committee that we examined the Bill exhaustively and that every consideration was shown to us by the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary. If the Bill were sent back to the Standing Committee again, I am sure that there is nothing more that the Committee could do to make the Bill a better one.
We have said today that most of the Amendments agreed to today have been accepted entirely because of the very co-operative way in which both sides considered these matters in Committee. The purpose which my hon. Friend has in mind would not be served by postponing further consideration of the Bill; indeed, it would be thwarted. Most of the work that the Minister has to do will follow the passing of the Bill into law. If we delay it becoming an Act of Parliament, then all the things for which we have worked and for which the Bill provides will also be delayed. Bearing in mind the conscientious way in which my hon. Friend attends to these matters, I think that we should have the Third Reading so that the Bill may go on its course. There will, I imagine, be opportunity for further discussion on these matters of health, safety, and welfare during the passage of orders which will be made under it and it would best serve the interests of those Whom my hon. Friend seeks to serve if he would withdraw his Motion and allow the Third Reading to pass without more ado.

Mr Ellis Smith: I should like to say a very few words in appreciation of the way in which everybody to whom I have spoken in respect of this matter has treated me since I raised it at 3.30 p.m. today. I begin with Mr. Speaker and the Clerks at the Table. Having said that, I would also put on record my great appreciation of the work done, especially behind the scenes—which nobody perhaps knows anything about—and of what has been done by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South-West (Mr. Bowden). I did not know at 3.30 p.m. that he had been consulted, but he having agreed after the fullest possible consultation that the Third Reading should be taken tonight, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

11.17 p.m.

Mr Lee: When the Minister of Labour introduced this Bill for Second Reading I remembered that it was the year of the centenary of the death of Robert Owen. Looking at the Bill as it now is, I think we can all say that it is more worthy than it was, and the more so for having been introduced on such an important occasion.
The background against which we have discussed this Measure in Committee and in the House is the fact that in Great Britain some 16,000 work people are injured and some 450 or more killed in factory accidents alone during each year. That has been the basis, I am sure, on which the Minister has seen fit to introduce his Bill. It has been the enormity of that fact which has prompted my right hon. and hon. Friends to try constructively to improve the Bill. We have discussed the part which both employers and trade unionists must take in the effort to ensure greater safety in our factories, and in this the Government themselves have a very great responsibility.
I agree with the Minister that the outstanding feature in the long-term operation of this Bill is that the Government have accepted a greater measure of responsibility than ever before for safety, health, and welfare in factories. We had a long discussion on the Amendment in which I asked the Minister to ensure that not only should he accept that responsibility but that the physical arrangements within his Department, especially in so far as the Inspectorate is concerned, should be such as would enable him


adequately to carry out the very responsible functions which he has undertaken. The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to tell us that that was his intention.
Within this same problem we have discussed—and it is relevant to this issue—the size of the Factory Inspectorate itself. We argued this in the Committee, where it was pointed out that even now, with all the additional responsibilities which the Government have accepted, it is adequate to the tasks which will have to be faced.
One recalls that as long ago as 1926 an International Labour Convention adopted by this country provided that as far as possible annual visits to factories should take place. We are a very long way from that position. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to take this seriously into consideration when implementing the promise he made to put his Department in a position to carry out the new responsibilities which he has now undertaken. The same thing holds good in respect of the equipment of the Department.
A very good job has been done with the fire Clauses of the Bill. I recall the terrible circumstances of the Keighley fire. The fact that the factory inspectors now will have the power to invite the fire prevention officers to go into such factories will prove to he a very great advance on the position which has obtained in years gone by. However, I am not yet convinced that we have reached finality in this matter, and I am sure we all hope that the Minister will watch the future to ensure that the provisions now contained in the Bill are adequate to our needs.
At this late hour, I do not wish to go into my " King Charles' head " about first-aid boxes and so on. We have made some improvements in the position in the Bill, but I am a long way from being satisfied. We shall not reduce the number of injuries which turn septic until we get rid of the rather antiquated approach to first-aid treatment and insist as far as possible on ambulance rooms, full-time qualified doctors and nurses, and so on. In that respect, the Bill still contains limitations.
Despite all that, we welcome the manner in which the right hon. Gentle-

man has met us and the constructive approach which there has been to the Bill.
I would again stress—this cannot be overdone—the problems which we discussed in Committee with regard to dangerous machines. The right hon. Gentleman invited all the trade unions whose membership is employed in machine shops where there are dangerous machines to look at the 1954 list of dangerous machines and suggest additions and improvements. I do not know whether anything has been done to publicise the right hon. Gentleman's statement, but I am doing what I can now to ensure that the trade unions—and the employers, if they can help—assist in making the list far more adequate than it is.
Improvements have been made in respect of the employment of women and young persons. However, I do not believe that we have gone as far in this as we might have done. There is provision within the Bill for working longer hours than are at present permitted in industry. I regret that we have not done more in this respect.
As the Minister has stated, my right hon. and hon. Friends have approached the Bill in an eminently constructive way. By hard work in Committee and in preparing Amendments—a job which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) undertook and did very well—we have tried conscientiously to improve the Measure. We did it because in the main we are convinced that this is the sort of legislation which is necessary if we are to improve safety, health and welfare in Britain's factories. From our vast experience of these matters, we know of the hardship which has unnecessarily been caused to hundreds of thousands of persons because of the limitations of the 1937 Act.
As a House of Commons, we—and especially those right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who served on the Standing Committee—can draw some consolation from the fact that something tangible, constructive and worth having has emerged from our labours. On both sides of the House we can feel that that is so. That being the case, perhaps we could now agree to the Third Reading of the Bill in the knowledge that we have served, as we believe, the workers in industry as well as we possibly can.
We are in a new phase in which legislation in this field which appears modern and up to date today will appear to be obsolete and redundant tomorrow. I feel that this Bill is perhaps the first chapter in a series of Measures which the House will have to put through because of the vast industrial changes which are now taking place.
If we can look at the problem in the same constructive and worth-while spirit in which the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary and we on this side of the House have tried to do in this matter, then I am pretty sure that the House of Commons will serve the people of this country very well indeed in future as I believe it has done in this present legislation.

11.26 p.m.

Mr Reader Harris: As it is getting on towards midnight I want to do no more than thank the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary for the very cooperative attitude which they have adopted throughout the passage of the Bill. I feel that what they have done reflects great credit upon themselves. There can have been few occasions when a Minister has gone out of his way so many tines to meet the wishes of the Opposition Front Bench and also those of the back benchers on both sides. I feel that by his action my right hon. Friend has brought great credit not only on himself and his Parliamentary Secretary but also on the whole House of Commons.
It is one of the pities that as there were no rows or riots on the Floor of the House and no insults flying back and forth the debate will not be reported very much in the Press. The Bill is a great piece of legislation, but it will go by almost unnoticed. This is a pity because, of course, when the great party machines are in action in a big political fight the work of the back bencher and his whole position and individuality become submerged. People say that back bench Members are just rubber stamps.
It is on an occasion such as this when a great piece of social legislation is going through the House and when both sides are co-operating to do something for the good of the people that the back benchers conic into their own. The Minister has accepted Amendments from the back benches as well as from the Opposition Front Bench, and it is a pity that the

country cannot see us in action on an occasion such as this.
One of the most important things in the Bill which has affected my mind has been the fact that fire prevention has been carried a great step forward. It has been given still greater recognition. I think that realisation has at last come that in a fire brigade the work of a fire prevention department is now almost as important as the fire extinguishing side of the brigade's activities.
Fire prevention is becoming a science in its own right. It is still a young science, but nowadays a fire prevention officer needs to know a great deal more than he did twenty or thirty years ago. He has to have knowledge of buildings, architecture, chemistry, physics, explosives and a whole host of other things. These men are becoming experts in their own right. It is gratifying that their position should be recognised still more than it has been in the past and to know that there will be greater co-operation between them and the factory inspectors whose job also is every day becoming more important.
I want to offer these words of thanks once again to my right hon. Friend who has done a great service to the House and to the country.

11.30 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I agree with almost everything that has been said in this Third Reading debate, and I shall not detain the House for long.
I, like others who have spoken, feel that this is an important piece of social legislation. How right the Minister was when he said, on Clause 20, that a statutory duty had been placed on the Minister and his Department for the health, welfare and safety of workers. He also said that this Bill was only a framework and that once it was on the Statute Book the real work had to begin. I agree with that statement wholeheartedly.
There are, however, a number of questions that I want to ask. Does the Minister feel that, given the framework of this Bill, the establishment of factory inspectors is sufficiently large to ensure that when regulations are made they will be honoured by all the employers in the country? The factory inspectors, it seems to me, have two duties. They visit factories, and they attempt to ensure that


whatever is contained in regulations is observed by the employers. I think they have another duty, namely, to advise in the most friendly way possible the employers on how they can improve the health, welfare and safety conditions of their workers.
From what I know about the establishment of the Factory Inspectorate, I have my doubts whether there are sufficient inspectors to do the job which I am sure the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary want done. In Committee they showed clearly the real concern that they have in these matters of health and welfare, and if anything that we can say on this side of the House will help them in their attempts to get a bigger Factory Inspectorate, I think it will be worth saying.
If a statutory duty has been placed on the Minister, I want to ask him another question. Does he intend within the framework of this Bill to put into the medical division of the Factory Inspectorate a group of nurses? This question was raised on my behalf by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) when an Amendment on which I wished to speak was ruled out of order. I think he made the case very well and that the Parliamentary Secretary in reply dealt with it most sympathetically. He said:
My right hon. Friend and I will certainly study very carefully what has been said on this subject, and my right hon. Friend will then consider whether it will be necessary to use the powers which he already has."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B. 5th March, 1959; c. 658.]
I should like to know whether, as a result of those considerations by the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Department, they will decide that one way of ensuring that part of the provisions are carried out is by having this small nucleus of nurses in the medical division of the Factory Inspectorate. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) said that he did not want to say too much tonight about first-aid, but he showed clearly that it was very important to use doctors and nurses in factories.
The Royal College of Nursing must be given great credit for the work it has done in training nurses in occupational health work. I am sure that it would be the first to admit that it has had the

greatest help and co-operation from the Minister and his Department. It is also being helped by the Nuffield Department of Occupational Health at Manchester University to publicise how important it is for factories to use the services of nurses. I am not asking that every little factory should be required to employ a nurse. Arrangements might be made for a number of factories to have the use of a nurse, which would not mean that the nurse would have to be in the factory all the time.
If interest is shown at the centre, which is the Minister's Department, and particularly his factories department, the excellent advice that would come from that centre would bring more and more employers to realise what a useful job of work could be done. Not only would it ensure that some slight accident would not lead to much more drastic results—and that would be important from the worker's point of view—but it would cut down the number of working days lost in industry. I am sure that the Minister, who has been so co-operative on many of the points made from this side of the House, will be ready to give an answer tonight on this important matter.

11.53 p.m.

Mr. Ray Mawby: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour must be congratulated on carrying out the many commitments which he made in Committee. While the Committee started off its proceedings with what was probably a little friction, by the end of our sittings we all tended to feel that we were working together. I can understand the reason for the omission, but one small commitment which was not carried out on Report related to an Amendment of mine in Committee on Clause 3, to which the Minister appended his name, but which was withdrawn after my right hon. Friend had said that he would consider the matter in time for Report. That, however, is not important. Taking the Bill as a whole, I repeat what I said on Second Reading, that we cannot legislate for good behaviour. We can legislate only against bad behaviour, and that is exactly what is being done in the Bill.
Clause 20, particularly, is a move in the right direction in an attempt to make certain that this legislation will be only a base above which we shall have more and more of those engaged in industry


aiming to secure the best possible working conditions. I believe that from the Bill we can go forward to a point at which we can convince more and more people in the industry that safety pays and that they should work well above the basic requirements laid upon them by legislation. For those reasons, I welcome the Third Reading of the Bill.

11.40 p.m.

Mr C. Howell: I will not bore the House by repeating many of the laudatory remarks which have been made. The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary know how I appreciate the work which they have done and the co-operative way in which they have done it. The Minister w ill probably be one of the first to agree that he has learned a lot. He certainly learned at the start, because he began by moving the Closure, which annoyed some hon. Members of the Opposition, and he did not repeat the offence.

Mr Iain Macleod: With respect, at no time, in Committee or at any other stage, did I move the Closure.

Mr Howell: We had one little dispute with the Minister when a vote was taken in the early stages and we even had a debate on the validity of the voting. I am not holding that against the Minister but merely saying that we have all learned something. I had to apply the Factories Acts for many years, and during the few weeks in the Committee I learned more about them than I had known previously. Even the Minister admitted that he was acting on a considerable amount of advice. If I can paraphrase what he said, it was that he was playing snakes and ladders and was being advised before the meeting which was the snake and which the ladder—which to go up and which to go down.
That arose from a point which I made that when we tried to interpret the Factories Acts a legal expert often told us that some other point was included in the Health Act. I told the Minister that as soon as possible I wanted a Factories Act which could be referred to as a bible and in which we could find everything on the subject, instead of having to refer from one Act to another, as I had to refer from the 1937 Act to other Acts to see whether one tied in with another.
In his reply the Minister indicated that he would like to see a consolidating Bill as soon as possible—a composite Bill in which all the amending Acts would be included. That has not been mentioned tonight, but I hope that the Minister will consider introducing a consolidating Bill, because its passage through the House would not take as long as this Bill has taken and it would be of great assistance.
I remind the Minister of a fact which surprised me. When a married woman is away from work having a child, it is an offence for the factory owner to reemploy her within a specified period. That is contained in the Health Act, not one of the Factories Acts, but it should b. in a Factories Act. It is one example of a number of facts, of which the Minister is well aware, which show why we should have a consolidating Bill.
I do not think that the Minister will claim that the Bill is perfect. It would be foolish for anyone to make such a claim. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) said, some of the things we have passed will be almost out of date before they are in print. We expect that kind of thing to happen, but I feel that if we get the Bill on the Statute Book we shall be able to say that as a result of our deliberations we have provided a better Act which will be of benefit to the workers of the country. As the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Reader Harris) said, the Bill may not get much publicity, but at some time somewhere someone will be grateful to the House for the improvements which we have made in the Bill in the last three weeks.

Dr. Stross: rose —

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): Order. The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak in the debate.

Dr. Stross: With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I have not spoken on Third Reading.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member refers to page 449 of Erskine May he will find that an hon. Member who moves an Amendment may not speak again in the debate. An hon. Member who seconds an Amendment is equally unable to speak again on the main Question, after the Amendment has been withdrawn.

Miss Herbison: On a point of order. Could not my hon. Friend speak with the leave of the House?

Mr Deputy-Speaker: Certainly.

11.45 p.m.

Dr. Stross: If the House will give me leave to speak again I shall be grateful. I am grateful to you, too, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I spared the House a long speech when I seconded the Motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith).
Of course, we welcome the Third Reading. The Minister, in his usual and most felicitous fashion, moved the Motion. I was particularly impressed by his warning that we should not overestimate the work we have done, for all we have done is to put words together. However happy we were in doing so and however much we agreed with each other, these words have to be implemented. I presume that implementation must come by the employers of labour, wherever they be, and that enforcement must come from the servants of the Minister in the Department and, in particular, from the Factory Inspectorate. Therefore, we now hand over to them.
I am sure that in doing that, we should all like to express our gratitude for the work they do. We have said this often during the passage of the Bill, both on Second Reading and in Committee. I will be excused, having said that, if I raise my usual complaint concerning the Factory Inspectorate. I must agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), who pointed out that she was not certain whether the force was big enough for all the work that we impose upon it. I have sometimes criticised the Minister for not making it possible for new entrants to be scientifically trained in sufficient numbers, as they used to be. We live in an age which is scientific and technical, more and more, day by day.
It is only a matter of about £90 or £100 a year at the entry grade that would satisfy the desires that we all tend to express. We get about one in ten of new entrants now who are qualified technically or scientifically. Until 1940, it used to be two out of three. I hope, therefore, that when speaking of the regard that the whole of the House has for the Inspectorate, the Minister will

not entirely jettison the possibility of doing something in this matter and in this way.
The right hon. Gentleman listened patiently to a quite long speech on radioactive hazards. This is a technical matter and we can only look to the Inspectorate to defend these people among the 8 million whom we are talking about. I know that it is useful and a good thing to be able to write Latin and Greek verses, but if, by and large, that is all one has learned to do, it is very hard work to get down to modern and technical scientific problems. It is much easier if one has also had a scientific education in one's youth at the university.
Some of us who have had experience of both types of education understand that it is desirable to assist the Inspectorate by raising—I say it quite bluntly—the salaries that we pay, at least in the entrant grade. This would save us money appreciably in other directions, because we would not have expensively to attempt to educate entrants once we take them, which is really what we have to do.
We have been so happy together in trying to make a good Bill better and knowing that we were succeeding all the time, and now we are quite sure we have succeeded. I wonder, however, whether we have, in fact, done it or whether we have been deceiving ourselves all the time. How is it that nobody has taken any notice of what we have done? May it be that we are all rather silly people? Otherwise, I wonder how one can explain what the Minister reminded us of on the last morning in Committee—and I was grateful that he mentioned it—when he said:
There is one more point I would put to the Committee…I think I am right in saying that practically not a line of the seventeen sittings of this Committee has appeared in the national Press."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 12th March, 1959; c. 778]
If it did, I never saw it. Our local newspapers from time to time did give consideration to what we were doing. but not the national Press.
We ask ourselves why this is. Are they wrong or are we? Is Parliament wasting its time in legislating for the 8 million people in the factories? Is it a waste of time for us on both sides of the House to do everything we can to make life more tolerable, to increase production, to bring about greater safety and


better health for our people? If it is wasting time we can understand why the national Press does not take note of our efforts, but if the national Press has made a mistake and is wrong we have a right to say that this is a good Bill.
We look to the national Press to assist the nation and inform our citizens, and very often by and large it does, but I noticed the other day that an attractive young lady came to this country, a film actress. I discovered it by reading the Daily Herald at breakfast that morning. The editor gave a whole editorial to her, with particular attention to her knees, which, he gave me to understand, he did not care much about really, and in his opinion there was no point in making much fuss about her. But he gave her the whole editorial, simply because the young lady has attractive knees. What nonsense. They are only hinged joints anyway, much the same as mine or yours, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
I sit down by expressing in this rather light-hearted fashion my objection to the stupidity of the national Press because it does not take note of what is being done for the 8 million who work for the good of our country in our factories.

11.52 p.m.

Mr. MacDermot: I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) has cast gloom over the House by suggesting that a young lady's knees are, after all, only hinged joints, and I should like to try to restore some of the greater sense of pleasure and happiness which was prevailing in our proceedings earlier.
Seriously, to have served in Committee on the Bill has been a most satisfying and rewarding experience for everyone. It is seldom that a Bill has been approached and dealt with so constructively, and certainly, speaking for this side of the House, it is seldom that we have found such great receptiveness as we undoubtedly found from the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary. They have treated and considered every point which we have put forward with the greatest care and courtesy. and, I think, undoubtedly surprised and pleased us enormously by the number of our suggestions which they have been able to take up and put into the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) made a kindly reference to myself, but I am afraid I must disclaim

much of what he said, and I apologies to the House for the lack of skill with which the Opposition's Amendments were drafted in Committee. If only they had been drafted with a little more skill I think we should all have been in our beds by now. It is because the Minister had to implore us to withdraw all the Amendments because of the inadequacy of their drafting that the Notice Paper has been so inordinately lengthy today. However, one way or another, we have arrived at the right solution.
Many of the points to which we attach particular importance have already been discussed on Report, but I would just seek to enumerate some of the ones which we consider to mark real progress in the Bill upon the way in which the Bill was originally presented to the House.
First, as has been said, the provisions relating to fire precautions, which, taken as a whole, are probably the most important series of Clauses in the Bill, have been considerably strengthened and improved. Several new powers have been taken by the Minister to make regulations, and I will say a little more about that in a moment.
The new Clause which was passed today, applying the Factories Acts to railway running sheds, brings to an end a battle which has been waged by a number of my hon. Friends for many years. As the Minister said earlier, it was a recommendation in the Gowers Report and one hopes that it will lead to an improvement in the conditions in those sheds which, I think I am right in saying, one of the members of the Gowers Committee described as having shocked the Committee.
Among the other new Clauses today were those imposing for the first time under the Factories Acts a general duty upon employers to provide safe places of work, and considerably strengthening the Section in the principal Act which deals with the safety of floors, passages and staircases. We have dealt with those matters on Report and I refer to them only in passing.
One matter not mentioned today. for the simple reason that it was one of the few provisions suggested by us in Committee in the right form, was a new Clause, which is now Clause 15, extending the duty of employers to prevent the lifting of excessive weights, extending its


application from merely young persons to all persons employed in factories. This is a matter of considerable importance because, as is well known to hon. Members, many accidents in factories occur during the lifting of weights—particularly injuries to backs. We hope that this provision will lead to a reduction in the number of such accidents.
In this friendly atmosphere, to sound a discordant or critical note is almost to assume the role of the bad fairy who turns up uninvited at the christening and pronounces a curse. I do not wish to do anything of that kind, but I am afraid that there is a streak in my nature, perhaps an unpleasant one, which makes me somewhat suspicious.
I confess that from the first time that I read the Bill I have had a feeling that it might contain an element of window dressing. We have several times heard it described as being a great piece of social legislation. We must see. It may turn out to be a considerable advance in terms of social legislation. On the other hand, it may achieve very little. I call attention to one Clause which has not been mentioned today, Clause 28, of which subsection (3) says:
This Act shall come into operation on such day as the Minister may by order appoint, and different days may be appointed for different purposes of this Act.
We do not know when any provisions of the Bill will come into force, that will depend on the Minister.
We hope that he will press matters forward and bring in various provisions as early as he can. We all recognise that he cannot possibly bring them in all at once. Many will need considerable preparatory work, preparation of regulations, setting up the necessary administrative machinery and so forth. We urge the right hon. Gentleman to press on with this matter with the greatest possible urgency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central referred to the Minister's remarks about the lack of publicity for our discussions in Committee. Perhaps my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend forgot that we were competing against two very strong candidates for publicity, for there were in Committee at that time the Obscene Publications Bill and the Street Offences Bill. Any Press publicity given to the Committee stages

of Bills at that time was reserved exclusively for the stonewalling of the Attorney-General on the Street Offences Bill and the perhaps more pliant attitude of his colleague, the Solicitor-General, on the Obscene Publications Bill. Be that as it may, we would all hope that in the reporting of today's debate more publicity could be given to the considerable progress made in the Bill. All who have taken part in it have worked together in the greatest co-operation.
I believe it was my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) who referred to the possibility of a consolidation Act. I feel that what is wanted is not so much a consolidation Act as a new comprehensive, reversionary Act. This is obviously not the time for that. This is the second Amending Measure to the 1937 Act, and it may be that the time has not yet arrived for repealing that and the amending Measures and starting afresh with a new one, but I feel confident that that stage will be reached in a few years' time. A great deal has been learnt in the intervening years, and much of what is contained in the 1937 Act is now a dead letter, or has become out of date. We hope that when we next consider Factories Act legislation it will be in the form of a new, comprehensive Measure.
Meanwhile, I want to return to the point I was making earlier. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give us an assurance as to the intention of the Minister to press on as quickly as possible with the various powers for making regulations which he has reserved to himself in the Bill. I have been looking rapidly through the annotated textbook on the 1937 Act, and I think I am right in saying that there are no fewer than 14 Sections of that Act in which powers given to the Minister to make regulations providing for the health, safety and welfare of workers have never been used—and twenty years have now passed since the Act came into force. I hope that we shall not have a repetition of that in this case, but will see the powers used and regulations laid before the House at an early date.
All those who served during the Committee stage of the Bill have been highly gratified at being able to take part in the proceedings. I would end by saying, on behalf of my right hon. and hon.


Friends, that we are most grateful to the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary for the very receptive and sympathetic spirit with which they dealt with our Amendments.

12.4 a.m.

Mr Wood: I am very honoured to have what I imagine is likely to be the last word on the Bill before it leaves this House and goes to another place. In fact, we reach the closing stages of the Bill with feelings rather tinged with regret. We seem to have been very happy, and, collectively, we think that we have helped to make a good Bill a better one. I think that that was the view of the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee), at any rate. I am delighted that I was preceded by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot), for whose legal knowledge his right hon. and hon. Friends have great respect, and for which we also learned, during the Committee and further stages, to have great respect. I think that I may say he introduced some of us to a gentleman with whom we had previously had only a passing, nodding acquaintance, Mr. Redgrave; but we all hope that we shall often hear him speak from the Dispatch Box, so long as it is from that side of the House.
The hon. Member asked about the date when the Act would be brought into force. I understand that there will have to be a number of different dates. First of all, a good many discussions will be necessary to bring into force certain parts of it, and the only assurance which I can give here tonight is that there will not be undue delay. My right hon. Friend gives the promise that we will bring into force the various parts as quickly as we can. I would tell the hon. Member that I have also taken very much to heart what he has said about regulations, and in this context I can say that we shall try to see that none of the powers which have been given us in the Bill are left rusty and unused. We shall try to use all the powers which we have taken.
The hon. Member, and others, mentioned what we know as the fire Clauses and I agree that they are among the most important in the Bill. It is perhaps here that we have made the greatest improvements as the Bill has proceeded

and I have no doubt that this part is now much better than when we first considered it. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Newton spoke about the Minister's statement concerning dangerous machinery and I hope that what my right hon. Friend said this evening will help to publicise this matter as it should be publicised.
The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), and others, including the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) spoke of the Factory Inspectorate. I know from past experience how close the matter is to the hon. Gentleman, and what a friend of the Inspectorate he is.
I was asked to say something about recruiting to the Inspectorate and I am very glad to be able to tell the House that the position is extremely good. The latest figures which I have are only three or four days old and they show that out of an authorised strength of 443, the number of inspectors in post is 409. While seven have passed their examinations and are awaiting appointment. The present establishment is the highest which has ever existed, but I have no doubt at all in saying that we shall never be entirely satisfied that there is really a sufficient number of them. For one thing, we have been putting on them a great many additional duties and certainly we shall need all we have. It is our hope that we shall be able to make up the deficiency in numbers as soon as we possibly can.
The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North mentioned the nursing service and I can tell her that my right hon. Friend the Minister has been very seriously considering this matter. He has a principal nursing officer at headquarters, and he has been much impressed for some time past by the great part which the Royal College of Nursing plays in its membership of the Industrial Health Advisory Committee. He will certainly consider further the needs of industry in this matter but, with the principal nursing officer, and the help from the nursing profession as a whole in the Advisory Committee, he has wide access to the good advice which the profession can give.
With regard to the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby), I did not have a chance at an earlier stage today to explain why


we had not tabled an Amendment to Clause 3, as we had promised, about hoists, lifts and lifting machines. My right hon. Friend had promised to consider the question of the 14-day or 28-day period within which a copy of a report on a defective hoist or lift should go to the district inspector, and he had also promised to consider the need for an emergency report. Discussions on those two matters are still going on, and when the Bill goes to another place my right hon. Friend will table Amendments which will, I hope, meet the wishes originally expressed.
I think I have said enough at this late hour. I hope I have been able to answer the various questions which have been raised. I repeat that with the help of the whole House we have made this a better Measure. I am glad that it is so clearly recognised in the House this evening that the Bill is only the beginning of further work in this field and that this work must now continue. I quite see that my right hon. Friend has a very great responsibility in trying to interpret the wishes that have been expressed, particularly in the Standing Committee, and. as the House knows. he will certainly he fully conscious of the duty which the House has placed upon him

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE(CONSULTANTS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]

12.12 a.m.

Mr Denis Howell: I wish to raise various questions relating to the consultancy service operated by the Ministry of Health throughout the country. There are certain trends, about which I have spoken previously, which I and some of my hon. Friends find rather alarming. We did not get a very satisfactory reply from the Parliamentary Secretary in a previous debate, which was rather short, but I hope to do better on this occasion.
Some of us feel that the trend in the consultancy service and in the Health

Service ought to be questioned. We are proud of the Health Service and of the great medical and nursing work that is carried out, particularly in the hospitals, but we must not allow our justifiable pride in these things to blind us to one or two undesirable trends and one or two questions which have to be posed.
One of the things concerning me is the change-over from whole-time consultancy to maximum part-time consultancy. The effect is that consultants who have been working the whole of their time for a specific hospital go over to working for nine-elevenths of their time for that hospital and reserve the right to work for themselves in the other two-elevenths of their week. In other words, it opens the door wider for opportunities of obtaining Health Service treatment by privilege.
One would think that the number of whole-time specialist consultants would be expanding, but figures which I have obtained from the Minister over the last few months show that at 30th June, 1955, there were 3,166 whole-time consultants and at 30th September, 1957, the number had increased by only 26. Although we know that probably more consultants have been appointed, the reason why the net gain is only 26 is that we must have lost considerably on the change over to maximum part-time service. Hospital regional boards and hospital management committees are encouraging the change over at a rapid rate, and I find it rather regrettable because there is very little opportunity for part-time consultants to supervise those concerned. It is rather difficult to suggest that a consultant at a hospital should be supervised in his work, but there was a committee, the Bradbeer Committee, which considered this important question and which recommended the appointment of a medical administration.
There are complaints from time to time about some of these part-time consultants, their laxity in ward rounds and in carrying out their out-patient visits; there are also complaints that domiciliary visits are abused. Therefore, one feels obliged to ask, if the Minister is encouraging this service, what safeguard has the Minister in relation to the part-time consultant service?
One reason why this change-over from the whole-time service is encouraged is


that it is felt right to give consultants the opportunity of earning private fees. As I have said to the hospital management committee on which I serve, where it has been suggested that this change over should be introduced, this would appear to be introducing a salary increase by the back door. It may well be that consultants ought to have more money; I am not discussing that tonight, but it is interesting to note that the salary of a top whole-time consultant is £3,385 per annum, added to which he can earn £840 for domiciliary consultations; also he can get further increases in the form merit awards, which I will deal with later.
The Birmingham Regional Hospital Board obtained an opinion from an eminent counsel to the effect that when a whole-time consultant's position is changed and it is desired to have a maximum part-time consultancy, that constitutes fresh terms and conditions of service. I am sorry to say that regional hospital boards have been pressed by the Ministry into disregarding that legal opinion. The result is that the more of these full-time specialists in the Health Service who become maximum part-time, the more pay beds are required in the Service, because if they are able in part of the time which is available to them to do private work and to see private patients, naturally, having charged a fee, they want to bring their private patients into hospital to receive priority treatment.
This is a trend which I find disturbing because it means that people are not treated under the Health Service on the basis of their need of treatment but that they can buy priority in medical care and attention, using not only the consultant's time hut the service provided in the hospital.
I have no figures relating to the increased number of pay beds, but I suspect—and this is confirmed by many of my colleagues—that it is on the increase. Many people have complained, as I have done to the hospital management committee on which I serve. Recently the West Bromwich Executive Council stated that a child going on the normal waiting list for a tonsil operation had to wait a considerable time, whereas if a parent were prepared to pay a handsome fee the child could be taken into hospital almost overnight and operated on. I

know that people who want to enter some of our teaching hospitals in Birmingham have to join the end of a long queue, but that if they are prepared to pay 20 guineas a week they can get in almost the next day and have treatment. We all agree that the medical profession as a whole has a high ethical standard, but nobody can justify that situation on ethical grounds.
I have had passed to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) a most glaring example of this sort of thing, which I should like to put on record. I am not going to give the names, but the whole thing is available to the Minister if he wants to inquire into it, as I hope he will. I mention it because I think it is typical and indicative of what is going on.
Here is a case of a man injured in December, 1957, and who is living in the Derby district. He periodically lost time from work. Eventually his doctor and his employer wrote to the medical superintendent of the hospital asking when the man could go for treatment. The following is the reply which the man's doctor eventually received from the consultant:
I am in receipt of your letter asking for preference for this patient with regard to his admission for operation. While it is, of course, quite reasonable for you to write in this vein I have also had a letter from the manager of the firm which is I think quite improper. From the medical point of view Mr.… has a condition which is by no means an emergency and indeed has been provided with conservative treatment to case the waiting period so that I consider there is no reason whatever why he should be advanced on the National Health Service list. He was put on this list at the beginning of July so it is likely that his admission will be before Christmas.
In other words, the man has to wait seven months to get into hospital. The consultant goes on to say:
Since the matter is so urgent from an economical point of view I would have thought he should consider having the job done privately and he is in the happy position that, assuming he has a wife to look after him at home and that you would be prepared to look after him from time to time during the immediate post-operative period, he has a condition on which I would be prepared to operate privately as an out-patient under local anaesthetic, in which case he would incur only my operating fee of twenty guineas. I might point out that the N.H.S. out-patient operating waiting list would involve a wait of some 12 to 18 months and the operation would be carried out by a junior so that he is already as well off a= he can be under the Health Service. It is possible that his firm would help him with his expenses.


This raises some other important questions. Quite clearly the consultant is saying that the man has to wait at least seven months for treatment, but that if he is paid 20 guineas he will treat the man at once. Secondly, and I think more important, what the specialist is saying is that not only will he do the operation for 20 guineas, but also that if he is not paid the money he will not do the operation at all. When the man eventually goes into hospital he will receive inferior treatment under the Health Service and will not have the services of the consultant. I find that even more remarkable than the fact that the consultant is asking for 20 guineas.
That sort of letter illustrates the trend which some of us in the House find rather disturbing after twelve years of the Health Service, and we are even more disturbed that this trend should appear to be encouraged by the Ministry. This change-over from the whole-time service to the maximum part-time service is a problem. There is no set-up in the Health Service to supervise when these part-time consultants come to the hospital. They are paid traveling allowances. There is no way of checking whether they are abusing the position or not.
Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of consultants maintain a very high standard in their public duties and do not abuse it. Those responsible for the spending of public money have to be very careful to see that it is well spent.
Finally, I want to refer to the question of merit awards, which I also find rather disturbing. This is a system under which an almost secret committee goes round the countryside seeing the regional boards and consulting the consultative services committee and looking at the work of various consultants region by region and deciding to give them extra payment over and above their salaries.
There are three rates of pay which the committee can give—£2,500, £1,500 or £500 a year. I understand that 279, which is 4 per cent. of the number of consultants, get the higher rate; 698, which is 10 per cent., get the middle rate, and the lower amount is received by 1,397, which is 20 per cent. of the total number of consultants. Therefore, 34 per cent. of

consultants are awarded considerable sums of increased pay.
The point is that nobody is ever told about this. It is causing considerable disturbance among consultants who do not know whom among their colleagues receive the increase, and it is causing concern among the regional boards. Once the committee responsible for making special merit awards makes this extra payment, it does not have to sit again and the payment goes on to the end of time. To award a specialist doctor, no matter how good he may be, £2,500 a year is a very big step to take, and to do it without consulting his employers, the regional board, is another disturbing action. Even more disturbing is that the board, not having been consulted about it, has to find the money out of its own finances.
This also causes suspicion among colleagues and does away with a certain amount of fair play in that fellow-doctors do not know whether the award has been justified or not and there is no provision for appeal by a consultant who feels aggrieved. He cannot appeal because he does not know that the award has been made to a colleague. It is an important principle that those employed in any public service should not be paid in this secret manner. Payment to civil servants, Members of Parliament and all who receive salaries from the public should be open and above board, and its award should be the responsibility of a reputable body which could be questioned about it. Alternatively, such salaries should be nationally negotiated through national negotiating machinery. That certainly does not apply to these merit awards.
These trends away from the National Health Service as we set it up are very undesirable. They are putting an absolute premium on ability to pay for specialist attention rather than on treatment justified on merit. That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the increasing number of pay-beds and the increasing concern of the Minister to get consultants to become maximum part-time consultants instead of full-time consultants. I hope that the Minister can give us rather more adequate reasons for these practices than he has given on previous occasions.

Mr. Charles A. Howell: rose—

12.28 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson): I shall answer the hon. Member for All Saints (Mr. D. Howell) as quickly and as fully as I can because tie has raised a number of matters of considerable public importance. As he knows, the remuneration of consultants, with that of other medical and dental staff, is under consideration by a Royal Commission. Further, a Working Party has been set up jointly by my Ministry and the medical profession to consider the whole structure of hospital medical staffing. It follows, inevitably, that many of the problems raised by the hon. Member will no doubt be dealt with in its Report. I do not want to shelter behind that fact, but the hon. Member must realise that we expect to receive a good deal of guidance from that quarter.
On the question of the transfer from whole-time to part-time appointments in the consultant service, when the establishment of these services was first under discussion the point was made that some consultants, while prepared to devote most of their time to hospital work and to give it priority on all occasions, preferred a maximum part-time to a whole-time contract. This preference was given statutory recognition in 1949—when the hon. Member's right hon. Friends were responsible for the Government—when Section 12 of the National Health Service (Amendment) Act ensured that regulations should not contain any requirement that all specialists employed in the hospital and specialists services would be whole-time officers.
Ever since 1948 it has been the view of successive Ministers of Health that, subject to the needs of the hospital service, which always come first, employing boards should weigh the circumstances and preferences of the consultants concerned. For several years it has been normal practice when a new appointment is made, unless the board considers that the need of the hospital service demands a whole-time appointment, for competition to be thrown open to all applicants willing to give substantially the whole of their time to the post, be it a whole-time or maximum part-time contract.
Similarly, the preferences of consultants who wish to transfer from whole-time to maximum part-time service

should be taken into consideration, again subject to the over-riding question of the needs of the service. All the individual decisions in cases of this kind are decisions of the regional board. The board is the employer and it is locally responsible for the provision of consultant and specialist services. It normally takes into account the views of the hospital management committees responsible for running the hospitals concerned, but as the principal responsibility is that of the board and as the board is the employer, it must also have the last word.
I can assure the hon. Member that applications for transfer from whole-time to part-time service are not automatically granted and that the statistics available to me certainly do not imply large-scale transfers. He has quoted the figures which I gave to him in reply to Parliamentary Questions and I will not go over them again, but he made the point that the rise in the number of whole-time consultants between the end of 1955 and 1957 was very small. The figure he quoted was twenty-six. The number of consultants and senior hospital medical and dental officers employed whole time has nevertheless continued to increase, although I agree that the increase has not been very great and that part-timers have increased much more in proportion than have whole-timers. Many of these, however, are not people who have transferred from whole-time service but are new men who have been appointed into the service on a part-time basis.
We must remember that the Guillebaud Committee in 1956 considered that there was a valid case for the retention of part-time consultant appointments in addition to whole-time appointments but that the financial arrangements should not be such as to induce a consultant to seek a part-time rather than a whole-time appointment. This is the point which the hon. Member was trying to make. That is also my right hon. and learned Friend's view, and evidence on the differences in the bases of payment to whole-time and part-time consultants has been given to the Royal Commission on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration. We must await any observations which the Commission will make on the subject in its Report.
May I say a word about supervision? The hon. Member suggested that there is


no control, or at any rate inadequate control, over what consultants do, how many sessions they work and how much time they devote to each session. This is not so. A consultant's duties are set out in his contract with the board whose responsibility it is to assess the time required to perform them. My right hon. and learned Friend more than once has drawn the attention of the boards to the importance of regular reviews of these assessments of time.
I turn to the thorny question of private practice. The question of transfer from whole-time to part-time employment is closely connected with a consultant's right to undertake private practice, to which the hon. Member referred. When the National Health Service was first established it was generally agreed that facilities for private practice should continue to be provided. That is the origin of Section 5 of the National Health Service Act, under which the Minister may set aside accommodation for private patients provided that he is satisfied that it is reasonable to do so. The numbers of pay beds set aside in this way have not varied greatly in recent years. The hon. Member's suspicion was that they were steadily increasing.
I am glad to give him figures which, I hope, will set his mind at rest. In 1949, the number of staffed beds allocated for private patients was 6,647 in England and Wales and 729 in the Birmingham region, including the Birmingham teaching hospitals. I obtained these figures in view of the obvious reason for the hon. Member's interest in the matter. In 1953, the figures were 5,793 and 611, respectively, and in 1958, 5,645 and, again, 611, respectively. In the same period, the numbers of staffed beds provided without charge increased by 6,000. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member will realise that there has not been a progressive rise in the number of pay beds. In fact, the number has gone down and the number of non-paying beds has gone up.
In the hospital management group with which the hon. Member is associated, the number of pay beds has been constant at nineteen until a recent change, when two additional beds were designated for private patients at the Marsden Green

maternity hospital. In view of the development of this hospital, the designation of merely two beds does not seem to me to be excessive.

Mr C. Howell: rose—

Mr. Thompson: I cannot give way; I have much to cover.
The hon. Member has complained that private patients are buying earlier admission. It is true that it is often easier to obtain a bed quickly as a private patient, but this is by no means an invariable rule. Indeed, in some of the larger teaching hospitals, private patients have to wait longer. It would not, in any case, be true to conclude that the abolition of private practice for hospitals would have any appreciable effect on the waiting list. The numbers of private beds amount to little more than 1 per cent. of the total bed complement and many of them are scattered over a large number of hospitals, perhaps with only two or four of such beds.
These beds are already making a contribution to the free services. There is an express reservation in Section 5 of the Act to the effect that nothing in that Section shall prevent private accommodation from being used for Health Service patients who urgently require it on medical grounds. In the past three years, in the Birmingham region, the average occupancy of pay beds was 270 by paying patients and 130 by National Health Service patients—naturally, free of charge. They have, therefore, been making a considerable contribution.
I have a minute or two in which to say a word on the subject of distinction awards, or merit awards, to which the hon. Member referred. The Spens Committee of 1948 recommended that the upper band of specialist pay should not be determined by length of service. This was with the objective of
providing sufficient incentives to stimulate effort and encourage initiative; of holding out opportunities of higher reward to all specialists alike in whatever branch of medicine.
The Spens Committee suggested that individuals should be selected
for exceptional reward in respect of outstanding professional ability.
It is difficult to see how that outstanding ability can be judged except by a professional body. The hon. Member


was quite right in his description of the three bands in which these awards operate.
The Government of the day accepted those recommendations and the proposals of the Spens Committee were translated almost exactly into the existing 14-member Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Moran, who still holds the post, and awards have been made accordingly since 1948. Every consultant is invited to inform the Committee of his claims and to keep these up to date. Any consultant may, further, appeal to the Committee if he considers that his claims arc insufficiently regarded. By means of annual tours, members of the Committee, and the Chairman in particular, add to the information available.
It is true that the Committee meets privately and its proceedings are confidential, as they must be from the personal nature of the questions with which it deals. The names of award holders are likewise regarded as confidential, because any general publication of names might lead to misunderstandings—for instance, by inducing patients to judge the quality of the treatment they receive by the pay of the consultant in whose charge they are placed.
The Government witness before the present Royal Commission on Doctors and. Dentists Remuneration agreed that the system had some disadvantages. For example, confidential awards obscure the total amount of remuneration; and employing boards, as the hon. Gentleman said, have no final voice in determining the remuneration of some of the consultants they employ. On the other hand, I must make this point. The system has met the main requirements of securing higher remuneration on the basis of individual distinction rather than age or length of service or because of a particular skill. There has been some success in rewarding more than ordinary ability, and the method has met broadly

with general acceptance. Despite the obvious objections, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, quite fairly, I think, it is the view of my right hon. and learned Friend that no superior alternative has yet been found, and the balance of advantage seems to lie in the continuation of these arrangements. Evidence to this effect, as I said, has been given to the Royal Commission and its report must now be awaited.
Of course, the total sum involved in this is controlled by the Exchequer, but in the actual distribution of it the Minister is advised by an advisory committee, and it is very difficult to see how any appeal body could be set up here because this is a professional matter and. as far as I can see, any appeal would once again have to be to professional people.
In the short space of time at my disposal I have tried to deal with a number of the really very important points which the hon. Member made. I would conclude on the note with which I started, that a good deal of what we have been Talking about today forms a subject which will have to be and is being considered by the Royal Commission which is now sitting.

Mr. D. Howell: Would the hon. Gentleman say a word about the complaint and the letter I read?

Mr. Thompson: Yes. I am obliged to the hon. Member. I should be obliged to him further if he would let me have full details of that complaint, because if there has been abuse or anything of that kind I should like to know.

The Question having been proposed of ten Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at eighteen minutes to One o'clock.